


The Stalk and the Storm

by the1918



Series: Song of the Rolling Earth [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Is 25, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Daddy Kink, Emotional Sex, Farmer Steve Rogers, Hyperspermia, Large Cock, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss of Parent(s), Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Modern Bucky Barnes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Phone Sex, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), References to Switching, Retired Steve Rogers, Shrunkyclunks, Size Difference, Size Kink, Steve is 40, Strength Kink, Sugar Daddy Steve, Top Steve Rogers, Twink Bucky Barnes, daddy Steve Rogers, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the1918/pseuds/the1918
Summary: “You could…” she starts, looking between him and Steve. Her eyes land on Bucky. “You could come home—”“I’m not leaving here,” Bucky cuts in sharply.“This,”he gestures all around the barn, “is where I belong now. Steve’s farm is myhome.”—The final installment in the AU Farmer Daddy Steve and Bucky story. Updates Wednesdays and once per weekend.part:|one|two|three|four|f i v e|
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Song of the Rolling Earth [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050335
Comments: 191
Kudos: 410





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final part of the series. My endless, sincere gratitude to all who have read this far and become entrenched in this world with me.
> 
> Thanks to [ixalit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixalit) for beta and to Cera ([@ceratonia-siliqua](https://ceratonia-siliqua.tumblr.com/) or [Leopardtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardtail) on Ao3) for additional sensitivity reading.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heed the tags regarding abuse and loss. Also:
> 
>  **Sensitivity Warnings:** Although I do not think these warnings warrant a tag due to the brevity of their presence, please be aware that this chapter contains brief mentions of drunk driving and transphobia (both "off-screen") as well as a very short episode of dissociation.

* * *

**b u c k y**

_Bucky is sixteen years old when his father takes him camping in the Brown County hills for the last time._

_Becca’s not there for this trip, away on a Girl Scouts weekend. Bucky doesn’t mind it so much, even though he does miss having his sister to talk to—as much of a pest as she can be._

_It’s the last occasion that Bucky will remember being alone with his father for any extended period of time, so it’s the beginning of an end, in a way. A chapter of his childhood fading away._

_This beginning starts with Bucky’s eyes closed._

_“Open up,” Pops says in his gruff voice, settling down in the folding lawn chair next to Bucky’s spot where he’s sprawled out on a blanket across the cool dirt, enjoying the night’s mountain breeze. “Look at these stars with me, son.”_

_Bucky does as he’s told, lifting his lids and looking straight up at the sky overhead. It’s early in the night; the last of the light on the horizon is still fading, the stars still rising. Bucky knows that if he wanted to, he could stand by himself in the dark and look up, look east, and he could tell all those dots of light whatever he wants to._

_He’s sixteen now. He’s got too many things to say to the stars._

_“It’s good to get out to nature like this. Gettin’ to see all ‘a God’s great heaven without all that light from the city.”_

_It’s the same thing Pops has said to him each time since they first started coming out here to camp; part of the routine. A younger Bucky would spread out his blanket and lay down on his stomach to play with his dinosaur toys, his astronaut action figures. Now—older—Bucky just spreads himself out on the sheet and enjoys listening to the trees and the owls while he watches his father go through the motions of setting up the tent, of starting the fire. When Pops is done, he always boils water to make his canteen of coffee, and then he sits down in his ratty old lawn chair, looking up at the sky so he can apprise Bucky of all the magic in the Lord’s vast creation._

_The stars feel nice shining on his face; beautiful, even._

_Bucky still prefers the things he can see and feel here on Earth._

_“But see—that’s the damn thing about all these superheroes, these_ ‘enhanced’ _people that keep croppin’ up,” Pops says after some amount of time spent ranting about things Bucky admittedly was tuning out. “I hear some of the folks in our congregation talking like they’re angels sent down from the Almighty himself to protect us, but I think they’ve got it backwards. Revelations says that the Anti-Christ—he an’ all the damn demons that’ll follow him in human skin—will seem to God’s flock like the greatest thing they ever did see.” He sips at the last dregs of his mug with a drawn-out sigh. “Just ‘cause some of ‘em came from the stars don’t make them God’s army of angels.”_

_Bucky watches his father pour himself another cup of coffee from the hot canteen. The dark brown liquid steams in the chilly air as it tumbles out._

_“Here,” Pops says, setting down the mug and digging into the pocket of his thick jacket, pulling out some kind of plastic bag. “Picked up some ‘a those gummy worms you always liked at the gas station. Don’t tell your mother. She’s always gettin’ on my ass for giving you kids too much sugar.”_

_He tosses the bag to Bucky, who catches it easily. The sound of the crinkling package gets buried beneath the crackling of the campfire._

_“I’m_ sixteen _, Pops,” Bucky says, suppressing his laugh with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not a little kid. You don’t have to monitor how much sugar I’m eating anymore.”_

 _“And that’s what I’ve been trying to_ tell _her. You’re a man now.” Pops pauses, looking thoughtfully at his canteen before pulling the second tin mug from its attachment to the top. “Here,” he says, filling it up. “You’re old enough_ — _drink yourself some of this coffee. A real man always takes his coffee black.”_

* * *

n o v e m b e r 2 4, 2 0 2 5

| 204 days until harvest |

Bucky doesn’t drink coffee.

Becca has loved it since she was a teenager. Steve has drunk it first thing in the morning for as long as Bucky has known him. But Bucky doesn’t like the way coffee makes him feel; he always gets the odd surge of power for a moment, but after that, the hot, bitter liquid leaves him feeling shaky.

But Bucky already feels shaky.

“Me too, please,” he pipes up when Steve offers Becca a cup.

Steve sets one of his large, steady hands on Bucky’s shoulder. He’s standing behind the couch where Bucky sits, facing his sister in the armchair. He catches Becca eyeing the red lines of scars that run upwards to disappear beneath Steve’s sleeve.

“You sure, Buck?” Steve asks softly.

“Yes, please,” Bucky nods. “Cream and sugar. Like you take yours.”

Steve squeezes Bucky’s shoulder and walks off to the kitchen. Bucky can hear the sounds of him puttering around in there, filling the coffee maker with water and grinding the beans.

He and Becca are quiet while Steve works. Bucky knows she’s waiting for him to speak first.

“What…” he starts, stopping early to clear his throat. “What happened?”

It’s the only question Bucky can think to ask. His brain is caught inside a gray cloud, weighed down under water vapor and heavy snow crystals, and now he has to swim through the thickness of it all as he tries to navigate how to react to the news that the only father he has is now dead in the ground.

He should be crying, right? Shouldn’t Bucky be falling apart on his knees, mourning the fact that he’ll never get to reconcile with the man who gave him life—with the man who kicked his ribs in until his mother and sister could hear them cracking?

“There was an accident,” comes Becca’s answer, her voice only a slight bit louder than a whisper. “A car accident. There weren’t any witnesses, so we don’t really know what happened. They just found the car in a ditch.” Bucky can see that she’s searching his face for a reaction—any reaction—but she finds none. “The, um. The sheriff said he would have died on impact.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bucky knows he should feel relieved his father didn’t suffer pain, but he’s not relieved. Bucky isn’t anything at all right now.

“How, um…” Bucky’s tone is flat and hollow as he licks his dry lips. Every question he can think to ask feels stupid, but they’re all he’s got right now. “How is Mom doing with all of that?”

It’s then that Steve enters the living room with two mugs of coffee—one for Bucky, one for Becca—before returning to the kitchen to grab a third cup for himself. When he settles down on the couch next to Bucky, he doesn’t sit so close that they’re touching, but it’s close enough to make it clear that he’s there if Bucky needs him. It’s also a subtle statement: they’re not afraid to be seen being close.

“She took it hard,” Becca answers, blowing the steam from her hot coffee in a way that makes it look like she’s just trying to keep busy. “But, um. Bucky… you gotta understand.” She pauses with a sigh and sets her mug down without taking a sip, folding her hands over her knee. “Mom hasn’t been the same since you left.”

“I didn’t _leave_ , Becca,” Bucky hisses, shocking himself with the quick, stabbing response and knife-sharp tone. His leg burns where a small splash from the shaking cup in his hand lands in his lap and soaks through his blue jeans. “I was kicked _out_ —”

“I know!” Becca says, almost a shout. Her jaw visibly clenches. “I know. I was there, remember? I saw the whole thing happen right in front of me. _I_ was the one who bandaged your ribs when Pops wouldn’t let Mom take you to the hospital.”

The air in the room falls to silence. Steve takes the mug from Bucky’s trembling hands and sets it down on the coffee table, placing his own alongside it. He leans back into the couch and gently places his arm over Bucky’s shoulders; a comforting presence while still giving him space to feel.

At least, it _would_ be a comforting presence, but Bucky doesn’t feel like he’s sitting on the couch next to Steve’s warmth. He doesn’t feel like he’s in the living room, or like he’s on Steve’s farm at all. Bucky is outside of his body in the kitchen he grew up in, peering over the lines of his own bruised flesh on the tile floor at his sister while she hugs her arms around herself. She’s crying.

“I’m sorry,” Becca whispers in the here and now, only feet away from him as she sits in Steve Rogers’s blue armchair. Bucky forces himself to escape the lock of the memory and return to the sound of her voice— _this_ voice.

This time, this place.

“No,” he argues, shaking his head softly. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Becs. I shouldn’t have said it like that.” He wants to lean over and hug her, but she still feels too far away. “I know you would have stopped him if you could.”

Becca doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that. She nods gently, biting her lip in a way that has Bucky recognizing the sight of himself in his younger sister.

She reaches down and finally takes a sip of her coffee.

“The night he died…” she starts. “He and Mom had been fighting again. He took her car that night, for some reason.” She scoffs humorlessly to no one. “Took his own keys, too, just to make sure she wouldn’t have a way to leave the house.”

Bucky blinks. He’s not sure he heard her right at first.

“They never used to fight,” he supplies stupidly, as though Becca will change her story because of it. “Not… Not really.”

“Sure they did,” Becca shrugs. “In their own way, and maybe not in front of us much—mostly. Mom just never fought back.” She pauses, picking at her cuticles like she’s thinking hard about the words she wants to use next. Her voice is quieter when she speaks again. “She started fighting back after you were gone. After Pops started drinking more. The coroner said he was drunk when he drove his car into that ditch.”

The words are utterly bizarre in Bucky’s ears. They don’t make one ounce of sense. Pops was someone who could always be counted on to have exactly one beer every evening; one Bud Light held casually in one brown armchair.

Bucky had never once seen his father drunk.

“I…” he starts, useless. “When?”

“July thirteenth. There was this big storm.” Becca casts her eyes down to her cup, blowing on it as though it’s not already cool enough to drink. “One of those big summer rains. Kind of came out of nowhere.”

Bucky is thankful he’s not holding his own mug when he hears it. He’s also thankful for Steve’s arms.

 _“Steve,”_ he gasps, suddenly finding his face in a broad, muscular chest with arms around his back. “Steve, it’s the same—it was…”

“S’okay, sweetheart,” Steve whispers against the top of his head. Bucky thinks Steve might be rocking them back and forth. “It’s alright, it’s just—just a coincidence. It’s okay.”

Bucky is sobbing so hard his tonsils hurt, and he has no fucking clue why.

It’s not for George Barnes; it’s _not_. These tears are for the hearts of sinners, not for the judgement of angels or whatever the fuck his father was most afraid of. These sounds and cries aren’t for love, but for anger—for rage. For the kind of man Bucky might never get to be because he was given the wrong map and told to face the wrong direction.

But Mom always said there was no such thing as a coincidence. Mom always said there was no such thing as luck.

Bucky wonders what God—if the bastard knew how to finally exist—loves most about July thirteenth.

“How did you find us?” Steve asks Becca. His fingertips rub circles over Bucky’s back through the fabric of his shirt while his voice rumbles against his cheek.

Becca is quiet for a little while at first. Bucky thinks she might be trying to figure out whether to address Steve or himself.

“Um, there was—so Ms. Jones? From church?” she asks. Bucky’s heaving has quieted enough for him to be able to nod into Steve’s chest, but he’s not ready to turn his face yet. “Yeah, well… Apparently she’s a detective on the force. Mom had asked her months ago—even before Pops had his accident—what kinds of places we might look if we wanted to find you.”

And Bucky can’t stay turned away from that.

“W-Why…” he begins, trying not to hiccup. He twists in his seat until he’s at least halfway facing his sister, his shoulders still nestled under Steve’s arm. “Why would she try to find me? Pops would have never let me come home.”

Becca gives him a broken look. “It’s _Mom_ , Bucky. She just wanted to know you were safe. Maybe try to sneak you some money.”

Bucky doesn’t know how to process that kind of information. He doesn’t know how to reconcile the memory of his mother crying while watching him get beat to the ground with this new knowledge that the same woman went searching for him the very next day.

He feels empty-handed.

“I…” he tries, tone blank. “So, how did…”

“Oh,” Becca takes a sip of her coffee before setting it back down on the end table. “So, last month, Ms. Jones started looking into the emergency room records for the surrounding counties. She found something from the hospital in Columbus. It, um.” She pauses, looking pointedly around Steve’s living room. “It listed this place as your address.”

From the look on her face, Bucky thinks Becca might be awaiting some sort of explanation as to how he arrived on some random farmer’s property. Bucky isn’t much in a mood to provide it.

“I wanted to call you on your birthday,” he says instead, not caring when his voice breaks on the last word. He forces out a smile through the persistent shards of heartbreak. “I missed you so much, Becs.”

And then Steve is swiftly moving out of the way, scooting to the opposite end of the couch so Becca can embrace Bucky once more. Bucky stuffs his nose in the plait of her sweet-smelling hair, her braid no longer dotted with snowflakes in the warmth of Steve’s living room.

“Steve is my partner,” Bucky eventually says when they pull away. He gestures to the older man at the end of the couch, who gives Becca an awkward wave and a smile. If Bucky’s use of the term surprises Steve, his face doesn’t show it. “I work and live on his farm with him.”

“Work?” Becca laughs, wiping her wet cheeks. “Since when do you know anything about farming?”

“Since the last few months,” Bucky answers, sticking out his tongue. “We’re growing wheat.” He pauses, hesitating. “Would you like… Can I show you around?”

Maybe it’s the bright look of hope Bucky can feel coming out of his own eyes, or maybe it’s just Becca’s willingness to say ‘yes’ to anything he might suggest right now.

Either way, Becca smiles back. She nods.

“Alright,” comes Steve’s voice from the end of the couch. He’s smirking, a twinkle in his blue eyes. “You heard the lady, Buck. Let’s give her the tour.”

Bucky realizes he has to start with _some_ explanation of how he and Steve met, just to make sure Becca doesn’t think Steve kidnapped him and forced him into some kind of indentured servitude on his farm. Becca—cautious, but surprisingly trusting of everything Bucky has to say—does nothing but smile and believe him when he tells her the truth.

They begin after that with a tour of the house itself, but they don’t spend too much time on it. Bucky makes sure to stick to the ground floor; he isn’t particularly fond of pointing his sister to the bed where Steve fucked him so recently that he can still feel the evidence between his legs. Steve takes it well when he and Becca gang up on him to make fun of the outdated floral wallpaper.

The sunshine has been pouring down brightly for long enough to warm the air outside a bit, at least enough for a quick walk through the field. Bucky leads the way as he takes his sister through the piece of dirt he’s fallen in love with, and Steve kneels down in the middle of a row, using his heavily gloved hands to dust away the moderate layer of snow and reveal greenish-tan bundles of dormant wheat and clover sprigs. Becca only makes fun of Bucky a little when he starts nerding out about their crop and their plans for the season. He knows his smile only grows bigger as he shifts to recounting their continued correspondence with the experts at the agricultural extension.

Steve looks up at him, and Bucky has never been on the receiving end of such a warm expression of pride.

A cheek-nipping wind kicks up and forces them to move their tour into the shelter of the barn. Bucky uses the opportunity to show Becca the various sketches and diagrams of their field, of the irrigation system, telling her more about the equipment they use. She’s a good sport; she humors him the whole time, even pretending to act interested when Bucky goes into detail about the types of seed they plant _—“Did you know that GMOs aren’t bad for you, Becs?”_ —and giggling at the blush that powders his face each time Steve goes out of his way to give Bucky credit for an idea.

“You know,” she says quietly after Bucky’s talked himself to exhaustion and they’re waiting for the wind to die down. “Mom is going to ask if she can see you.”

The comment stops Bucky short. He spots Steve drifting in his direction out of the corner of his eye.

“Becca, I… I don’t know.”

Steve rests an arm around his shoulders. Bucky leans into it—not quite hiding in the safety of Steve’s jacket, but accepting the comfort as it’s offered.

“They’re starting a new hands-on engineering program at your old school,” Becca starts, talking like it's a casual piece of news and not a bizarre, out-of-place suggestion. “A fast-track program. They’re partnering with Indiana and Purdue for a transfer system.”

Bucky wants to resent her for taking the conversation in this unwelcome direction.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” he murmurs instead, looking at his shoes. “You know I dropped out.”

“You can still go back,” she answers. She swallows audibly. “If you want.”

Bucky lifts his chin and watches her gray eyes shift up to Steve’s face, then down to where his hand is wrapped around Bucky’s shoulder. She’s staring at the red lines again.

“Becca…”

“They reached out, actually,” she cuts in. “Called the house. One of your old professors was hoping you’d be a part of the pilot program.”

Attending junior college—both the first and the second time—had seemed to Bucky like an endless path of discouragement. He’d loved many of the classes themselves; Bucky has always felt at his best when he’s learning something new. But with each new ounce of disappointment, with each tried-but-failed multiple choice test, the path to a four-year university only got longer and longer. Bucky had finally felt he’d had no other choice but to give up.

“It starts in January on their north campus,” Becca continues. She pauses with a small shrug. “Still not too late to sign up.”

Steve has yet to move his hand from where it rests curled over his shoulder. If Bucky tilts his head the other direction towards Steve’s neck, he can pick up the very light scents of sweat and musk and lemongrass soap—three things that build Bucky’s safe place.

“That’s too far away from here,” he answers, shaking his head. He flicks his eyes down at Steve’s boots. “I’d be on the road for over two, maybe three hours every day.”

He chances lifting his gaze again to see Becca. She’s chewing on her lip.

Bucky knows that look.

“You could…” she starts. She looks between him and Steve, finally landing on Bucky. “You could come home—”

“I’m not leaving here,” Bucky cuts in sharply. “ _This,”_ he gestures all around the barn, “is where I belong now. Steve’s farm is my _home.”_

The arm around him tightens, but it doesn’t exactly pull him closer.

“Buck…” Steve says softly—soft enough that Becca might not be able to hear it even when she’s only feet away. “This sounds like it could be a really good opportunity. Maybe there are options.” His thumb strokes over the curve of Bucky’s shoulder. “We should talk about—”

“—I am _not_ going back to that house,” Bucky bites, whipping his head up and to the side so he can look into Steve’s eyes. “I can’t.”

“We could get you an apartment? Something close to the school.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me now, too?”

Bucky knows the accusation comes out more knife-like than Steve could possibly deserve. He still can’t stop it.

He’s not going anywhere.

“Shit, baby…” Steve whispers, pulling Bucky into him. “Come here.”

Perhaps he should feel weird sharing such an intimate hug with his… his _partner_ in front of his sister, but Bucky doesn’t. He needs this. He needs the reminder of Steve’s embrace to tell him he’s wanted—that he’s loved, here, in Steve’s fields and Steve’s home. He needs Steve to wrap him up and press his lips against the top of his head.

“Of course I’m not trying to get rid of you,” Steve murmurs into his hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Bucky lets himself be held. He doesn’t extract himself from Steve’s arms until he’s calmed his own breathing and Steve has rubbed his insecurities away with little circles on the small of his back. When he does pull away, he takes a deep breath, turning back to Becca.

“Thanksgiving is on Thursday,” she says. “Will you maybe…”

He understands what she wants to ask, but he can’t grant it—not yet.

“I want to see her, Becs,” he promises, and it’s nothing but the truth. “But I… I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

Steve runs an encouraging hand up and down Bucky’s bicep.

“What if we call them?” he suggests. “A video chat, maybe. I could be there with you the whole time if that’s what you wanted.”

Bucky thinks about how that call might go. He realizes that he’s been so caught up in the fact that his father is no longer a part of the fucked-up equation that he doesn’t know how his mother feels about the part of his truth that’s been uncovered.

“How does, um.” Bucky stops, focusing on not wringing his hands together. “How does Mom feel about the…. the whole…”

“The ‘gay thing?’” Becca smiles, and Bucky nods in return. “I mean, yeah, she’s confused. I won’t lie to you about that. But she loves you no less for it. I think…” She pauses, seeming to consider her words closely. “I think she just needs help and time. To understand.”

Bucky isn’t sure what it would mean to have his mother ‘understand’ that he likes men and not women.

It doesn’t seem hard to grasp.

They end up asking Becca to stay for dinner, which is a delectably tender pot roast Bucky had put in the slow cooker earlier that day. He’s become so used to making more than enough volume to feed a super soldier that no one suffers from the fact that they’re serving one more person than originally planned. Bucky is glad Becca doesn’t seem to notice Steve eating more than twice as much as a man even his size normally would.

The conversation is lighter while they share their meal, sopping up salty pools of _au jus_ with a loaf of crusty French bread. Becca doesn’t visit the subject of going to school again, and she doesn’t mention Pops much at all. They talk about her new job, where she met her new boyfriend. Mom seems to like him, Becca says.

Bucky wonders—silently—if Mom would like Steve.

After a dessert of fresh scones, he and Becca hug each other fiercely as she gets back into her car. Steve stays back inside the house and allows them a moment alone.

“Your man is pretty hot, you know,” Becca teases, pulling away from their tight embrace.

Bucky sniffles, laughing.

“Yeah. I know. I’m lucky he found me.”

Something softens in Becca’s face. She looks towards the house, then back to Bucky, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.

“I’m thankful you have him,” she says softly. The sentiment sounds honest and sincere. “And I don’t know him very well yet, but I can tell from his eyes that you found him just as much as he found you.”

Bucky is caught off-guard. He knows how he feels about Steve, and he knows how Steve feels about him, but it feels strange and different for some third person to finally see who they are when they're together and be able to say something kind about it.

“I love you,” he croaks, squeezing her hand. “I… I’ll call. On Thursday.”

Becca smiles.

The ancient engine of his father’s dark blue sedan clanks and knocks as it’s driven away, headed for a right turn onto Rural Route 850.

—

Steve is usually good at picking up on when Bucky just wants to be left by himself in the kitchen.

The kitchen— _this_ kitchen, with its butcher block countertops and white gas stove and faded floral curtains—has been Bucky’s safe space since the day he arrived on Steve’s farm. It’s his domain; the place where he knew what was happening better than Steve did, the place where Steve has always backed away and let him run the room without question. This kitchen has been the sole corner of the world where Bucky can be the one to show Steve the ropes.

Right now, this kitchen is the place where Steve gives Bucky room to scrub too hard at serving dishes and fight with brown rings of coffee stains instead of having to speak. He and Steve normally do the dishes together after dinner, but they both know today is not ‘normally.’

The mug he’s cleaning slips from his grip and falls into the deep farmhouse sink, breaking into three pieces.

“Fuck,” Bucky swears quietly to himself. Steve still hears him, whether from his voice or the splitting sounds of the ceramic.

“You okay?” he calls from the living room, where Bucky knows he’s only been pretending to watch _The_ _Dick Van Dyke Show_. “Need help?”

Bucky groans quietly enough that maybe Steve doesn’t hear him this time—maybe. He picks up the pieces of the mug from the sink and crosses a few feet to toss them in the trash bin.

“No,” he calls back. “‘M fine. Just clumsy.”

Bucky returns to his task of making everything altogether too spotless. He’s just realizing that he’s going to need to stop washing and towel off some things if he’s going to have room in the drying rack when Steve enters, opening the refrigerator and grabbing the pitcher of filtered water far too slowly to be anything but intentional. Bucky ignores him.

He _tries_ to ignore him. Steve still lingers.

“Sweetheart,” Steve says as he closes the refrigerator door. “If there’s anything you need to talk about, anything at all—”

“—Shut up.”

It might be the sharpest Bucky has ever spoken to Steve—to his partner—and he immediately feels nasty for it. He doesn’t let his face betray the remorse.

Steve carefully sets down his newly full glass of water on the countertop just as Bucky picks up a plate from the drying rack. He grabs a clean rag, rubbing overly vigorous circles across the planes of the dish.

“Buck…”

“I don’t care if he’s dead,” Bucky spits, stripping moisture from the plate. His chest might be heaving if it could afford the space; if it weren’t so tight inside.

He sets the dry dish down to the side and grabs another, starting the process over.

“Baby,” Steve calls softly. He starts to cross the kitchen. “No one is saying you have to feel a certain way about any of this. Whatever you’re feeling is perfectly okay. There’s no one right way to—”

The little white salad plate in Bucky’s hands looks like it was bought at a garage sale. It’s chipped already—like most of the dishes in Steve’s cabinet—and it doesn’t look like something Steve Rogers would select for himself. It looks functional. Necessary.

Bucky hates it.

It smashes into a hundred white, tiny fragments when it hits the tile floor.

“Shit,” Steve gasps, stopping short of coming any closer. He eyes Bucky up and down, checking. “Sweetheart, are you cut—are you okay?”

Bucky breathes in deep. He stares at the pile of white shards and glassy dust.

Then he picks up another plate from the drying rack—one from the same damn ugly set that he knows means nothing to anyone.

The shattering sound is louder this time.

 _“That’s_ how I fucking feel, Steve,” he grits through his teeth, tears of pure and raw resentment stinging the rims of his eyes. “Even just thinking about that man makes me want to wreck everything I can get my hands on.”

Bucky’s throat is raw from sucking in cold air too fast, over and over. He wants to sink down against the cabinets until he reaches the floor, but the tile is covered in sharp edges and weapons thanks to him. He settles for leaning against the countertop and slowly taking the air back into his lungs.

Every time Pops was a judgemental ass to a woman all alone with a baby, every time he referred to someone as ‘it’ because he thought they were too androgynous to deserve any other reference or name or the dignity of being asked. Every time he called Mom a ‘bitch’ when he thought she was out of earshot.

Bucky’s got two hands. He could have punched the bastard with at least one.

Now, he’ll never have the chance.

“Bucky,” he hears as faultlines silently shake and his knees collapse beneath him. Steve’s arms are solid and sure. “Baby, wait. Let me—let’s go, c’mere...”

It’s a familiar feeling by this point: being weightless as Steve picks him up as though Bucky consists of nothing but emotion and skin to touch—like gravity is simply void when they’re together. Steve sits Bucky down on the countertop, letting his feet hang while Steve’s strong hands hold him upright.

He doesn’t know how long he spends sitting on the counter’s edge with his forehead pressed against Steve’s shoulder. Bucky’s not sure if he’s crying because he’s angry or if he’s angry because he’s crying, but the worst of it eventually subsides. He’s left with nothing to do but exist and let his heart feel gray and dull, like it could be nothing but a piece of cooling charcoal kicked from the edges of a campfire if not for the lack of warmth pulsing in his chest.

“My father was a monster.”

Bucky’s voice sounds far away, even to his own ears. He finds the strength to pull back only enough to be reminded that Steve’s eyes are blue and green pieced together like perfectly crafted stained glass windows. Right now, they’re clear and open.

“He was a monster,” Bucky repeats, voice gritty and rising. “And I won’t _do_ it, Steve. I won’t mourn him. I won’t grieve for someone who broke my fucking bones when he found out more about the person I am.”

Something dark flashes across Steve’s eyes, but it’s fleeting.

“You don’t have to grieve him,” he whispers. “You don’t have to do anything. What _do_ you want?”

Bucky laughs. There’s not a drop of humor in it.

“I want those plates to glue themselves back together so I can break them all over again.”

He doesn’t get the dry chuckle he expects from Steve. What he does get is Steve going oddly still for a minute, then kissing the side of Bucky’s head before pulling back. The broken pieces of each plate shuffle when pushed clear with the stiff bottoms of Steve’s house shoes.

“You know,” Steve begins, something curious in his tone as he turns and walks to the kitchen cabinet opposite Bucky’s spot on the counter. He runs his finger down the outside edge of the maple-stained door where a bolt had long ago gone missing and left behind an annoyingly crooked hinge. Steve’s fingertip stops at the trouble spot, tapping it. “I’ve been meaning to fix this for a while.”

Bucky doesn’t even have time to be confused about the swift and sudden change in subject before Steve opens the door and wrenches it downward, ripping it free of the cabinet with such unchecked strength and clean precision that Bucky is left gasping in shock.

“What—Steve!”

The other door to the cabinet meets the same fate despite having every one of its hinges in perfect working order. The two slabs of wood get tossed carelessly amongst the jagged pieces of what once were dishes, splinters sticking out from beneath the hardware.

Bucky spots the veins in Steve’s arms bulging and pulsing more than they usually do from the sudden exertion. He thinks maybe he can feel a share of secondhand rush in his blood, too.

It’s only then that he registers which specific cabinet Steve has chosen to defile; Bucky finds himself staring at open shelves with stacks of dinner plates, bowls, and every other type of dinnerware in this house. He’s used everyone one of them and washed every one of them before, and he knows they’re from the same impersonal set that their fallen mates on the floor had belonged to.

Steve grabs a salad plate from the shelf, handing it over. Bucky is still too stunned to do anything but accept it.

“Here you go,” Steve says. “All yours.”

Bucky stares blankly at the plate for a second before looking back up at Steve. He knows his mouth is agape and hanging open as loosely as his legs hang from the counter’s edge.

“What…”

The corner of Steve’s mouth crooks upward.

“Break it,” he says, and then he gestures behind him to the permanently open cabinet full of dishes. “Break all of them.”

“If I break all of them, we won’t have any _plates_.”

“So?” Steve shrugs, far too casual and easy. His smile grows. “We’ll buy new ones. We can pick them out together.”

For a moment Bucky considers that Steve is either teasing him or has actually gone crazy. Then his eyes fall back down to the floor—to the pieces of broken cabinet doors—and he realizes that he’s never seen Steve acting more sane than he is right at this moment.

Bucky extends the plate outward in front of his body. He drops it.

The white circle breaks and joins the needless pile of fragments.

“Oh, come _on,”_ Steve prods, teasing. “I know you can do better than that.”

Steve turns back to the cabinet and grabs a bowl before launching it towards the tile the same way Bucky had with the very first plate he broke. It shatters to pieces brilliantly.

Bucky’s breath hitches at the sight. He slowly lowers himself from the countertop, letting his hard-bottomed slippers crush the ceramic beneath them. When he walks forward, Steve is already there with a dinner plate in hand.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate to take it from him this time.

“Do what you gotta do, sweetheart,” Steve smirks, his rare Brooklyn accent just barely seeping through. “All of this is just stuff.”

Something new swells in Bucky’s chest—several things, actually.

The first of it is rage: rage for the mess his father left behind, for the life his mother could have lived if only she’d loved a different man. It’s rage for the bandages his sister had to wrap around his ribs after witnessing them break. It’s rage for opportunities he’ll pass up because—because—

And it doesn’t fucking matter. Bucky lets the plate go, and pieces of his rage shatter with it.

Somewhere at the edges of this growing stormcloud of adrenaline, Bucky hears Steve making a victorious sound. He hands Bucky another dish. This one—a bowl—looks even more gorgeous when it’s smashing to bits.

Bucky might be on his way to grinning.

He’s starting to feel more of the second presence pressing up against his sternum from inside. This time, the feeling is slow and sickening and deceivingly wretched, and it’s confusion, Bucky somehow understands. It’s being Pops’s pride and joy for the first twenty-four years of his life only to be thrown out on the streets before twenty-five. It’s a lifetime of not being able to reconcile the stark contrast between the words of hatred flowing from his father’s tongue with the words inked inside the Bible. It’s taking months to finally be able to believe Steve when he tells Bucky that he’s not just taking up space in this world.

There’s still enough rage left inside him to _really_ enjoy the way the bowl splits apart magnificently.

And then it just keeps on going like that. Bucky is starting to wish that he’ll never have to stop this, and maybe he won’t. They have a lot of plates. Steve hands him dish after dish after dish and watches him smash each one against the tile floor, cheering Bucky on with curses and almost filthy encouragements, laughing whenever a piece hits so hard that bits of it skitter across the tile.

One break at a time, Bucky says goodbye to all the weight he doesn’t need to carry.

But then there’s one last feeling, one final sensation squeezing around his heart from the inside until it beats for it and it only. It’s so very different from the things that now lay broken on the floor, but it’s familiar to Bucky, persistent and recognizable even without a name. Perhaps it’s not new, but tonight it feels... different. Bucky can’t put his finger on why—not at first, at least.

But then he looks up at Steve as he’s offered one of the final plates in the cabinet, and Steve’s smile is brilliant. His eyes crinkle at the corners with pride and something bigger.

Time stops.

Bucky’s hand doesn’t shake when he sets the plate aside on the countertop carefully, and he doesn't bother to look at where it ends up. It doesn't matter.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the man he loves.

Broken bits of ceramic protest beneath his shoes when Bucky fearlessly launches himself off the floor and into Steve’s arms. Steve is perfectly quick to react even when caught off guard, folding him into his grasp without hesitation as Bucky wraps legs around his waist.

 _“Thank you,”_ Bucky whispers desperately, his own tears and breath soaking Steve’s lips. “Thank you, Steve, I…”

But just as fast as his earlier realization had come upon him, Bucky also realizes he doesn’t want to confess it to Steve now; he doesn’t want to forever associate the first time he tells Steve that he loves him with any hour or day to do with the man he once called his father. Bucky wants that moment to be like a fairy-tale, to be perfect and special and full of joy, perhaps so much that it could bring tears to Steve’s eyes. And maybe he won’t have the courage to say it tomorrow, or even the day after, but—one day—Bucky is going to say it, and he’s going to unleash this feeling in his chest and let it grow so big and bright that it blinds Steve just as much as Bucky is blinded by Steve’s love for him.

But, for now, Bucky kisses him and lets himself be kissed. He threads his fingers through Steve’s hair, pouring his unspoken love into the embrace with fervor and devotion and every shining beam of gratitude he’s ever felt, all of it a million times over.

He has Steve; he has this.

The world and everything else can wait amongst the broken things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [the_gods_wife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_gods_wife) for additional sensitivity reading in this chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the _amazing_ comments on the last story. I’m very behind on replies in my inbox, but please know that I read each and every one and treasure them.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**s t e v e**

d e c e m b e r 2 3, 2 0 2 5

| 175 days until harvest |

“ _Fuck,_ sweetheart.”

Bucky slowly drags his magnificently hot mouth up what scant inches of Steve’s length he can get between his lips, more of it now than he’s ever been able to fit before.

He’s done so good for his Daddy.

Steve widens his legs in his sitting position on the couch as much as he can. Bucky scoots in even closer between his spread thighs and pulls off with a generous _pop_. Steve rewards him by tightening his fingers in Bucky’s hair just enough for it to be praise instead of pain.

“So fucking sweet to your Daddy, aren’t you?” Steve coos.

Bucky blushes when he nods. He delicately thumbs the underside of Steve’s cockhead.

“Wanna make you feel good,” he smirks with an earnest shyness to it, licking Steve’s tip. “Want you to know how much I like you in my mouth.”

Steve groans deeply and tosses his head back against the couch. Bucky returns to sucking him, reaching beneath the tucked-down waistband of Steve’s sweats to massage his heavy balls.

It’s impossible for Steve not to marvel at how far his boy has come in his confidence when it comes to sucking cock. Bucky’s always been thirsty for it, always begging with words or eyes or both to be able to get his lips around Steve’s dick, but now he’s learned how to press all of Steve’s buttons and get him shooting off like a rocket in record time.

“Baby… Babydoll, fuck,” Steve pants, eyes squeezing shut tightly while he tries to keep his very core from bursting into stars. “You—You’re gonna make your Daddy _come…”_

Then Bucky moves the hand on Steve’s balls and does something absolutely wonderful, a new little trick he’d only just picked up last week. It’s something Steve has done to him plenty of times before, and apparently Bucky’s been taking notes. He presses the flat of his knuckle to Steve’s perineum while he licks lasciviously up the entire length of his thick, rock-hard dick.

Steve _howls._

“Here, Daddy,” Bucky rasps as he pulls back, pulsing against Steve’s sweet spot twice more before taking both his hands away and leaning back on his heels. “Jerk yourself for me?”

Steve mourns the loss of Bucky’s touch and hot mouth, but he can do nothing but acquiesce. He lets Bucky’s hair go and wraps that hand around his own cock, stripping it furiously while he watches Bucky execute whatever his new plan is, which apparently involves reaching a hand over his own back and tugging up his t-shirt, and oh, oh _fuck_ —

“Come on my neck, Daddy,” Bucky husks, eyelashes low. He slips one hand beneath the hem of Steve’s shirt while the other returns to massaging Steve’s balls. “My neck. I want it.”

Bucky keeps his stormcloud eyes set on Steve’s while he tilts his head back ever so slightly, exposing the long expanse of his throat and the delicate skin draping over his collarbone, flowing down to his tight brown nipples. His red lips are wet and parted.

 _“Fuck,”_ Steve growls, fist pumping faster. He’s so close. “C’mere,” and he pulls Bucky in even closer with a strong hand on his shoulder. “Let me—Let your _Daddy…”_

And then Steve’s balls are drawing away from Bucky’s fingers and up into his body, his cock pulsing like mad as it erupts at the tip. The first half dozen wet spurts are strong enough to land gorgeously on Bucky’s lips and chin and neck, a bit of it splashing up to touch the dark lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks, his gray eyes closed in a state of rapture. The power behind Steve’s release eventually backs off, but it doesn’t stop. It soaks Bucky’s clavicle and drips down to his chest.

“Christ,” Steve breathes out when his cock and balls are finally spent enough for him to slow his hand and let the last dregs of his orgasm trickle down over the shaft and his fist. “Sweet fuckin’ _boy._ Look at you.”

Bucky’s smile is beatific and full of pride when he takes the balled up t-shirt in his hands and wipes away his eyes and mouth. He does nothing to touch the rest of it yet, leaving it for Steve to look his fill.

“Good?” he laughs, throat scratchy.

Steve huffs out a chuckle. He rests his head back against the couch with his eyes closed only long enough to catch his breath, and then he looks back down and takes in more of the sight of his beautiful boy covered in his come.

“You’re incredible,” he murmurs. “What was all that for?”

It’s an honest question. They’d been spending a perfectly lazy afternoon enjoying each other’s company and the white world of snow outside and the lingering scents of Bucky’s Christmas cookies baking in the oven. Steve had brought Bucky a hot mug of cocoa—and then he’d been promptly jumped.

“I think you know,” Bucky smirks. He starts using the shirt to slowly wipe off the rest of the mess covering him, catching the drips and cooling sheets of it before it reaches the rug or the couch. He cleans off Steve’s hand and cock, too. “You can’t just bring me hot chocolate with marshmallows— _mini_ marshmallows, Steve—and not expect me to want to suck your dick for it.”

“That was for the cocoa?” Steve laughs incredulously. “Jesus, baby. I had no idea you had such a thing for that.”

Bucky finishes wiping away what he can, discarding the shirt off to the edge of the carpeting. He crawls into Steve’s lap.

“Oh, no,” he says, his face completely straight as he wraps his arms around Steve’s neck. “I take hot chocolate very, very seriously.” He pauses, ghosting his lips across Steve’s before finishing his sentence. _“…Daddy.”_

Steve growls and wraps Bucky in his embrace. He nibbles on his bottom lip before tonguing into his mouth with the sureness and dominance he knows Bucky thrives on being under, sweeping through hotly, tasting himself.

“Mm,” Steve hums deeply when they finally part. “You’re a sticky mess, baby boy. A good Daddy would take you to his shower and rinse you off.” He lifts his hips experimentally, pressing his half-soft cock into Bucky’s groin until he can feel the hardness there. “A good Daddy would get you all nice and clean, take you to his bed. Let you squirm around while you sit on his face.”

Bucky gasps quietly.

“And…” He pauses, licking his lips and tasting Steve’s spit. “And are you a good Daddy?”

Steve grins wickedly.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “Should we find out?”

They never do learn how good of a Daddy Steve is—not in the way they’d planned. Steve ends up opening Bucky up in the shower and pressing him against the wet tile, lifting him up and down on his cock until his ragdoll of a wide-eyed, sweet baby boy bursts onto their stomachs completely untouched.

—

“How do you like your potatoes for Christmas dinner?”

Steve looks up from his spot at the kitchen table. He’s been idly flipping through the mess of old cookbooks they found in a box in the attic while Bucky stays busy in the kitchen with what must be five different cutting boards and every knife they own, all of it sprawled across the countertops beside endless amounts of scratch ingredients. He’s prepping tomorrow’s Christmas Day feast, which he’s been planning for at least the past two weeks.

Bucky’s long hair is tied up in a half-hearted bun, wild strands falling everywhere. He looks like a painting.

“I don’t know,” Steve admits with a shrug. He toys with the edge of a yellowed, worn page. “I guess I’ve had them all different ways in restaurants this century, especially back in New York. But when I was growing up, they were always just…”

“Boiled?” Bucky supplies.

Steve nods with an eye-roll and a self-deprecating laugh.

“Yeah. Boiled. Like everything else.”

Bucky gives him an adoring smirk. He wanders over from the counters and stands beside Steve, placing a hand on his shoulder and peering over the spiral-bound collections of someone’s old recipes.

Steve smiles up at him. Out of the edge of his vision, he can see the rows of kitchen cabinets that are all just open-air shelving now, each of their doors removed and tossed in with the junk before Steve had refinished and painted the bones left behind. Each clean-looking shelf is stacked with brand new plates and bowls. Bucky had called it ‘chic.’

“Well, I know it’s just the two of us, but you’re a big boy with a big appetite.” Bucky pauses, chuckling as he looks toward the piles of russets and new potatoes atop of the counters. “And we’ve got a lot of spuds to work through. I’m thinking we do both scalloped _and_ mashed.” He turns back to Steve, cocking his head. “Are you still afraid of garlic?”

“You know I’m working up to that,” Steve grumbles.

Bucky laughs, cheeks rosy. He looks and smells like the perfect image of a cozy winter.

“I know. I just like to tease.” He smirks and leans down to peck the tip of Steve’s nose. “Sour cream with chives and cheddar it is.”

Bucky returns to the kitchen. Steve can’t help but admire everything about him as he walks away, socked feet and soft sweatpants, his top half wrapped up in one of Steve’s own too-big sweaters.

They spend most of Christmas Eve with Steve watching Bucky prepare the next day’s dinner. He offers any help he can now and again, but Bucky only seems to give Steve a task to stay busy when he’s really just trying to get him to stop being a bother. Slicing ‘extra-thin’ scalloped potatoes is apparently very hard work, and something that Bucky needs almost absolute quiet to focus on—save for the sound of Nat King Cole’s voice spinning out of the record player in the living room.

Steve has just opened a new bottle of red wine _—“wine at Christmas, beer every other day of the year,”_ Bucky insists—when he hears the rare sound of Bucky’s phone pinging. He looks up and finds Bucky frowning.

“What is it?” Steve asks. He tries his best to sound casual, but he’s never been much of an actor. He knows Bucky will see through it.

“Becca again,” Bucky mumbles. He blinks at the screen a few times before putting his phone away, shaking his head. “She, um. Mom is still asking her about having us over tomorrow night.”

Steve isn’t surprised. It’s the answer he’d expected.

Bucky had kept his promise to his sister and called Becca’s cell phone on Thanksgiving Day. They’d talked and laughed for a while, and then Becca had brought their mother into the frame at Bucky’s shaky but thought-out green light. Although Bucky never asked him to join in— _“not this time”_ —Steve had sat faithfully at the edge of the room and listened to every deeply emotional second of the short video chat, ready to take Bucky into his arms at any minute should the need arise.

It had been a big moment; a big step. Still, it’s been one month since that time, and Bucky hasn’t gone to visit his old house. Steve has to remind him nearly every day that he has no obligation to do so.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, crossing the room and moving in to place a hand on Bucky’s lower back. “You know you can do anything you want. You can go, I can go. I can stay here. You can do another video call.” He leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. “Or we can do none of it. Anything you decide is okay.”

“I, um.” Bucky turns his head towards the half-prepared spread on the countertops. The scent of a pecan pie pre-baking wafts from the oven into Steve’s nostrils. “I think I want to stay here,” he says, looking back to Steve. “I want our first Christmas to be about us.”

Steve smiles at Bucky’s choice of words: their “first” Christmas. The sentiment is so beautiful and pure and perfect, just like Bucky. Steve himself has come a long way these past few months; he knows this because he’s not afraid to let his mind run wild imagining how many more Christmases they could spend together—unknown factors be damned.

“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do,” Steve says. “We’ll stay in this house, and I’ll keep this fire going and spoil you silly with all the presents you’ve got coming, and I’ll make a fool of myself trying to carve up the perfect turkey you’re going to roast.” He wraps his arms around Bucky, pressing his mouth to the shell of his ear. “And then you can sit pretty and watch me eat way too much of your scalloped potatoes, and your mush potatoes—”

“—They’re _mashed_ potatoes, you dork, and they’re sour cream and—”

“—and cheese and chives, no garlic.” Steve grins broadly, kissing Bucky’s lips as he murmurs the rest. “And I’ll eat that amazing pie in the oven, maybe save you a slice. And then I’ll give you even more presents.”

“Okay,” Bucky laughs. “But where in your strict Christmas Day schedule do _I_ get to give _you_ presents?”

“Hm,” Steve hums thoughtfully. He lowers his voice in tone with his mischievous wandering hand, cupping Bucky’s ass. “By ‘presents,’ do you mean giving this sweet little bottom to Daddy?”

Bucky grins when he blushes.

“That. Yeah.” He leans up on the tips of his toes in the way that Steve has learned means he expects a kiss. “Maybe also some of your favorite foo-foo lavender bath bombs.”

To Steve, the best thing about the sound of his own laughter is the harmonic undertones of Bucky’s sweet giggling mingling in his ear alongside it.

—

Christmas is the first time since meeting Bucky that Steve has had a real excuse to shower him with gifts. Bucky—as it turns out—is a champion at receiving presents when he’s not weighed down by the insecurities of charity and homelessness. His boy _loves_ to be spoiled. When Steve begins dragging boxes out his stash in the storage closet one-by-one on Christmas Day, Bucky makes a dramatically impressed face and praises him for his gift-wrapping skills, and Steve’s cheeks heat up.

The first thing he has Bucky open is the deluxe set of attachments for his stand mixer, which goes over just as fantastically as Steve hoped it would. The nearly industrial-sized food processor comes next, then a simple greeting card that just promises in Steve’s scratchy handwriting that they’ll go together to pick out a better couch whenever Bucky wants. There’s a slew of other items—including a book entitled _So You’re Thinking About Getting Chickens_ , which actually makes Bucky squeal—and Bucky unabashedly enthuses over every single one.

But the biggest pleaser is the comprehensive new wardrobe of clothing. It had occurred to Steve a month prior while folding their laundry that Bucky has essentially adopted Steve’s entire style over the past five months—although Steve is self-aware that fifteen versions of the same functional plaid shirt and beat-up denims can’t be called a ‘style’ at all—and Bucky has probably never had the chance to truly dress himself in a way that befits his personality. Steve had been completely lost on where to start with remedying the problem at first, but he’s rather proud of himself for thinking to look into personal shoppers as a better way of accomplishing his task. He’d hired a service and filled out a set of lengthy questionnaires—and the returns did not disappoint.

_(“Steve, are these… okay. I don’t know all the big designers—”_

_“Me either, sweetheart.”_

_“—but these are_ definitely _a big name. Like… a really fucking big name.”_

_“Careful with that mouth, baby doll. Might get yourself in trouble tonight.”)_

Steve can’t help but slouch back into the couch and adjust his hips, spreading his legs a little wider as he settles in to watch a show of Bucky modeling all the nice things his Daddy bought for him.

Bucky hadn’t been kidding when he’d hinted at having his own presents for Steve. As Steve unwraps them, he can spot the intentional, meticulous balance of Bucky wanting to treat Steve to gifts he knows he’ll never buy for himself—a top-of-the-line pair of tough, leather work boots, for example, something he knows for a fact would have run Bucky several hundred dollars—while still avoiding the appearance that he’s squandering or being careless with the well-earned salary Steve transfers into his private account as one of two official employees of Grant Farms. The care he takes in achieving that balance is needless, of course, but it will be a long time until Steve would consider burdening Bucky with the knowledge of Steve’s actual net worth. He’ll smile and encourage him to shop and spend whatever Bucky thinks is a healthy amount until then.

The final thing he gives Bucky is the sleek piece of hand-held soil sampling equipment he’d seen Bucky eyeing in the Tractor Supply Company catalog—and Steve doesn’t quite get the reaction he’d been expecting. The tool is much more a piece of farm equipment than it is an actual Christmas gift; he’d only wrapped it to see Bucky smile when opening it. Instead, Bucky’s face does something complicated, beginning with wide-eyed elation and interest before morphing into an expression that the dread in Steve’s gut knows is the cousin to sadness.

“It’s a hand auger,” Steve explains, although he knows Bucky is perfectly aware of what he’s holding. “To collect better samples for the Extension. Keeps them more intact.” He finds himself glancing downward, picking at his cuticles. “Gonna be really important coming up here in the spring.”

Bucky blinks, looking up at Steve. He seems to school something in his features.

“Yeah,” he smiles with the ghost of a laugh. “This is perfect.” Bucky rises from the armchair, standing while holding the auger upright. It’s nearly his height; the red bow on the handle tickles his cheek. “And I can’t believe you actually _wrapped_ this. Nerd.”

Bucky’s grand Christmas dinner is predictably delicious. Steve eats more potatoes than he’s ever consumed at once in his life. He goes back for a third serving at one point and makes a show of grabbing the shaker of garlic salt from the spice cabinet, sprinkling a pinch across the heaping piles of starch on his plate.

But—after an early dinner and a remarkable pecan pie—Steve can see the cheerfulness in Bucky’s demeanor slowly fading with the setting sun. He sees him turn his phone to vibrate, but he still hears the occasional buzzing of Bucky’s sister sending him messages.

“I, um,” Bucky starts after the device on the coffee table thrums once more. He sits up next to Steve on the couch, grabbing his phone and looking down at the screen. “I think it’s time for me to go call Becca.”

Steve nods his understanding. He rubs Bucky’s shoulders soothingly with one hand.

“Would you like me to be there?” he asks. “Or even just be nearby, like last time?”

He watches Bucky chew on his lip, considering Steve’s question.

“No,” he eventually answers. “I think I can do this one on my own.”

Bucky stands and leans down with the telegraphed intention of giving Steve a chaste peck, but they both allow the kiss to linger, soft.

—

_“Hey, Mom. Merry Christmas.”_

—

The rest of their night takes on a different tone. Steve tries his best to distract Bucky from the unspoken shadows hovering in silence behind their backs. He doesn’t do it to seal them away from reality, but to give Bucky a chance to have the magical, perfect Christmas Day he’d been hoping for.

“Hey there, sweet thing,” Steve drawls with a smirk when Bucky comes into the living room with two fresh glasses of red wine. He pats his own thigh twice. “Wanna come sit on my lap with those drinks?”

Bucky smiles at Steve’s attempt at cheekiness. It doesn’t have the energy that it might have had were those lurking shadows not amongst them to dampen it, but it’s a smile, nonetheless.

 _It’s A Wonderful Life_ is playing on the television.

“Oh, well…” Bucky shrugs casually. His grin grows. “If you’re _offering_ ,” and then he crawls across Steve’s thighs in careful balance with the plum red liquid cupped in each of his palms.

They end up in bed at a quarter to ten. Steve consumes Bucky in the devoted embrace of his arms, lovingly caging him in against the sheets. He abandons all sense of impatience or haste as he opens Bucky up slowly, carefully, breathing his lover’s air and tasting his boy’s mouth.

“Going to fuck you now,” he husks into Bucky’s skin, though ‘fucking’ is not what Steve does.

Steve is all tenderness and reverence when he slides himself in. Bucky gasps into his mouth before falling apart, starving for breath, drowning in lips. Steve swallows the sweet vibrations of his moans.

“Daddy… _Steve_ …”

Steve is far too selfish tonight to allow Bucky to tumble far into that sweet, blurry headspace. His greed is voracious; he keeps his love with him on Earth using his teeth and tongue and words, pulling Bucky back from oblivion each time he dips in, letting him come but never quite letting him float away.

“I’m right here, sweet boy,” he promises, careful and exact with the smoldering strength behind his thrusts. “Not going anywhere.”

Steve lets Bucky rest after breaking him down to pieces twice on the end of his cock. They lay there together, Bucky cradled atop the breadth of his chest, and Steve lifts Bucky’s chin to kiss the wetness shining on his flushed cheeks.

He knows the tears aren’t all from sharing in each other’s pleasure.

There is a rare easterly wind this Christmas night. It whips through the tree branches outside the bedroom window, making them tap gently against the glass. Even the sound feels cold.

Steve tugs the quilt up further to better cover their entwined bodies.

“I have to do it.”

Steve doesn’t need to ask Bucky what he means. He’s been waiting for days for Bucky to be able to say it out loud.

“I know, sweetheart,” he whispers, tightening his arms and pulling Bucky closer into him. “I know you do.”

They lay in a shared quiet for a long while. Bucky weeps silently on and off, and Steve can feel the tight squeeze of his eyelids against his chest. He doesn’t try to quell the tears; he pets Bucky through it, stroking his hair and the soft planes of his back, murmuring loving words against his temple as he holds him.

“Becca’s… Becca’s been telling me more about it,” Bucky says once he’s calmed enough to be able to speak. “About the people at the program who’ve been calling the house. They said it would even be on scholarship, so long as I can keep my grades up this time. And I could transfer to Indiana when I’m done—even Purdue.” He pauses, drawing air deep into his lungs to settle himself and slow his runaway pace. “I could be an _engineer_ , Steve. I could work on solving all kinds of problems.”

“It’s perfect for you, baby,” Steve says softly, because it really is. “I wouldn’t ever want you to pass up a shot at happiness.”

Bucky sucks in a shuddering breath and pulls back enough to set his weight on his elbows, looking at Steve. His eyes are shining with tears.

“But _you_ make me happy.”

Steve Rogers never knew that the sound of a heart breaking is branches and wind tapping against windows.

“And I still can,” Steve assures him. He cups the side of Bucky’s face gently, sweeping a thumb over his cheekbone. “Baby… We’ll make this work if you want to keep me in your life. You don’t have to choose between me and the future you want for yourself. I don’t want you to ever have to make that choice.”

Steve’s not sure what he’s expecting next, but it isn’t for Bucky’s face to light up with shock and adoration and new tears that seem as if they’re the only avenue for emotions to break free of his chest. He scrambles further up Steve’s body, straddling his waist and leaning down so he can rain frantic kisses all over Steve’s face and jaw and lips. His long hair falls to either side of their heads like soft, brown curtains between them and the rest of the world.

“I love you,” Bucky whispers with his throat cracked open. “I love you. And I’m sorry, I’ve known it, I should have told you earlier. I was waiting for the perfect moment, I was—”

“Sweetheart,” Steve breathes. “This _is_ the perfect moment. You just made it perfect.” He frames Bucky’s jaw in both of his large palms, dwarfing his face in Steve’s hands. “Thank you.”

Bucky makes a broken sound and closes his eyes as he gives into Steve’s gentle guidance, letting him slot their lips together. They kiss until the lack of oxygen pulls them apart. Bucky falls back onto Steve’s chest.

“I love you,” he says again, smiling into Steve’s skin and laughing wetly. _“God,_ that feels so good to finally say.”

Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s damp hair. He exhales.

“I love you too, sweetheart. So, so much.”

And the tree branches still tap against the window panes.

—

Steve makes love to him again later in the night. Their foreheads touch, never parting as they breathe each other in, and it’s like the very first time all over again. He buries himself inside Bucky and drowns in his taste, his touch, his scent, and he does everything he can to push away the harsh realities knocking around in both their heads, building a dam against the deluge of truth that he knows will come pouring in after the night is over.

—

“It’s a fast-track program.”

Bucky’s voice is scratchy with sleep when he speaks, his words drifting through the drafty air of the bedroom. The skin of his cheeks is golden in the strip of morning sunlight slinking in past the curtains to spill over the bed.

He glows like Steve’s very own angel.

“It’ll be like a full-time job, but more,” he goes on, his tone flat and almost idle-sounding. “I’ll be in classes and labs for eight hours a day. Homework and projects on nights and weekends.”

Steve hums. He presses a dry kiss to the back of Bucky’s neck, nuzzling his nose against the tiny, soft hairs at the nape.

“Mm. It’s going to be a lot,” he agrees, chin bumping against Bucky as he tucks it over his shoulder, nodding.

Bucky doesn’t say anything else for a while. Steve can’t get enough of his warmth tucked safe in his arms, and he begins pulling Bucky’s back tighter into his chest when Bucky instead extracts himself from the hold, turning to his other side to face Steve. His eyes are just inches away, full of inescapable love and sorrow.

“It’s… That means…” Bucky pauses, squeezing his lids shut with a sigh before opening them again. “It means I can’t stay here.”

There had been a time—what now feels like a lifetime ago—when Steve knew for certain that one day he would have to open his arms just to let Bucky leave them. He’s since banished the notion from his worries, from his heart, all of it for Bucky’s sake.

He doesn’t regret letting go of the fear. He’s happy they had their time without it.

“No, sweetheart,” Steve says. “I don’t think you can.”

But they’ll navigate this.

They’ll figure this out.

They have to.

* * *

**r e b e c c a**

j a n u a r y 1 1, 2 0 2 6

Becca removes the last few metallic shower curtain rings from their box and struggles to hook them through the grommets correctly. She’s standing on the closed toilet lid to reach the tension rod, wishing she had brought in a step stool to do this job.

Once she finally gets the last one through, she exhales and brushes her hands together as though doing so can actually dust off the ‘new plastic’ smell. She dismounts and gets her back feet on the floor, straightening the curtain. Becca takes a minute to admire it; her brother has turned out to have admittedly good taste in interior décor when given free rein to explore his options.

She tosses the discarded packaging into the trash bag she’s been carrying around during the move-in. She then busies herself with sorting Bucky’s soap dispenser and toothbrush holder for him, moving some clutter off the countertop and into the medicine cabinet to clear up space.

Satisfied that she’s done as much as she can to help out in the bathroom, Becca heads in the direction of the kitchen, where she last saw Bucky organizing all his new pots and pans. She’s about to round the corner in the hallway when she suddenly hears a sound that is not the clanking together of Bucky’s dozen different cookie sheets, but the deep and often deceptively gruff voice she’s slowly becoming familiar with.

 _“Alright, but I get to ask it one more time,”_ the voice says. _“Are you_ sure _this is all you need? The furniture? Textbooks?”_

Becca stops short of turning into the kitchen. She feels weird and awkward hiding behind a wall, but she’d thought that her brother’s giant, bearded boyfriend had hit the road fifteen minutes ago, and she really doesn’t want to intrude on more of their lovey-dovey bullshit if she can avoid it.

Seriously—the guy is nice as hell, and Becca will be eternally grateful to him for basically saving Bucky’s life, but she really wishes he were just a _little_ less sexy so her tragic brother might actually have a shot at keeping his hands and eyes off him.

…At least, some of the time.

 _“I’m sure, Steve,”_ comes Bucky’s soft laughter. Becca can tell they’re trying to keep their goodbyes quiet, which kind of makes her feel bad for eavesdropping.

Kind of. She can’t deny that she’s a little bit fascinated by their dynamic. There’s just… something different about it. At first, Becca had thought it maybe had something to do with their age difference, but the longer she’s spent around them, the more she thinks they would probably act the same together as they do now if they had been born in the same year.

But whatever it is, it had actually taken Becca a while to spot it early on. She had been too busy side-eyeing Steve and feeling anxiously protective over her older, adult brother to see much more than an odd cradle-robber at best and a predator at worst, but she’s since gotten to know the guy. She’s gotten to know _them_ , actually, not just this new stranger, but also this new version of Bucky. She’s seen how Steve takes care of him, how he double-checks that Bucky’s jacket is thick enough for the temperature outside before they head out, how he scans Bucky’s grocery list three times over to make sure there’s enough protein and vegetables.

She and Steve had butted heads briefly early on. They’d squabbled a bit about it, but Becca had ultimately agreed to lay off for Bucky’s sake and let one _Mr. Steven Grant_ be the co-signer on Bucky’s apartment lease instead of herself. She may technically be Bucky’s younger sister, but she has the funds and the credit, and she’s _family_ , and she’d been willing to be that person for her brother. Whatever.

(Becca has now seen the furniture Steve purchased for Bucky’s new apartment. Apparently, this failing farmer has _no_ issue with funds.)

 _“All your pretty new clothes look nice in that walk-in closet,”_ Steve says in the kitchen. _“I’m a little jealous.”_

Bucky’s giggle is a distinct sound.

 _“Oh, don’t worry. You know I’m going to make you remodel one day. I’ll get my closet_ and _my farm.”_

Becca almost snorts in her hiding place. After talking with Bucky on the phone almost every day since he’d moved in last week, Becca knows that her brother has been dreading this day, this moment. He’s in love with that damn farm—and the man who owns it.

_“I still can’t believe you’re giving me your truck.”_

Bucky’s voice is quieter now; sadder. Becca knows that if she were to peek around the corner she’d probably find them with Bucky’s arms lifted high to sling around Steve’s neck, Steve bending down to rub their noses together.

 _“It was already yours, Buck. I told you. I put the title in your name back in September.”_ Other words come, and most of it gets lost to Becca’s ears, but she catches it when Steve says, _“was planning on getting something newer anyways. Was gonna give it to you before you left. Back then.”_ She hears the sounds of breathing, maybe a light kiss. _“Before I asked you to stay.”_

Oh, yeah. Becca had almost forgotten about the entire _car._

She needs to give it up and admit it: her brother found himself a sugar daddy before she could.

God damn it.

 _“And you_ like _your new truck?”_ She hears Bucky ask. _“You swear it?”_

 _“Mhm,”_ Steve hums. _“I swear it. And I also swear I won’t be hitting any cute boys on the side of the road with it.”_

Bucky giggles again, but it doesn’t escape Becca’s ears that it comes out as a wet sound.

 _“I know you can’t promise that,”_ he shoots back lightly. _“But—if you do—just put him up in a hotel. Don’t want him falling for your charms like I did.”_

She hears them share a laugh, and then a long period of silence floats by. Becca is starting to get bored, and she considers going back to the bedroom or the bathroom to see if she can locate any more move-in trash to put in her bag, but then she hears a quiet sob in a voice she knows to be her brother’s.

 _“I—I just,”_ but Bucky stops with a hiccup. _“I still don’t understand why it has to be every_ four _weeks.”_

Despite the part of her that wants to roll her eyes, Becca’s heart breaks for him.

 _“Yes you do, sweet boy,”_ Steve answers. It’s amazing to Becca how such a rough-and-tumble farmer can sound so soft when he wants to. _“You need your focus to stay on getting through this program. If I come every weekend, you’ll never get homework done. You’ll miss labs and classes and exams, like you said you did last time you were in school.”_ Becca hears the sound of a peck on the cheek. _“But we’ll talk every day, anytime you can.”_

 _“But you’ll_ _come?”_ Bucky asks, sniffling. _“I’ll see you every four weeks? Promise?”_

 _“I promise. I’ll be here in four weeks—even less, this first time—when you get home from class. You can look for my shiny new truck.”_ More wet laughter and kissing noises happen, and Becca is caught between puking and setting her chin in her hands dreamily. _“And then you’re mine for a whole weekend.”_

 _“But I…”_ And ugh, dear Lord in Heaven, Becca knows what he’s going to say. She’s overheard this a million times now. _“I want to spend our time together at the farm.”_

 _“I know, baby. But this was your idea—remember? And a damn good one, really. You said it yourself: if you come to the farm, you won’t want to leave it. It will be hard on you every time.”_ Another chaste peck of a sound. _“It will be better for you if I come visit instead.”_

 _“I know,”_ Bucky responds, almost too softly for Becca to hear it. _“I just… I love it there.”_

_“I know you do. And the farm will be waiting for you during your Spring Break.”_

_“Do you think the snow will have melted by then?”_

_“I don’t know, sweetheart,”_ and there’s a nascent, special affection in Steve’s voice that builds on a fondness already present. _“But I think that when it does, we’ll see nothing but green wheat everywhere we turn.”_

Becca can’t make out much in the way of words after that. She’s glad of it, really; she can tell by nothing more than the energy in the apartment that hearing would be intruding on the most private, important sort of moment.

She doesn’t hear anything at all for another three or four minutes, and when she does, it’s the sound of the front door opening.

 _“I love you, sweet boy,”_ comes a barely audible whisper.

A muffled crying noise is wrenched from someone’s throat, and it floats through the apartment, unmistakably bearing her brother’s voice. It’s not the cold draft from the open door that makes Becca shiver and sigh against the wall.

 _“I love you, t-too,”_ Bucky says. _“Call me when you get home?”_

Steve must nod or something, or maybe they kiss, but Bucky doesn’t say anything else. The wind outside is just barely too loud for Becca to hear anything else but the front door shutting thirty seconds later.

Once it’s closed, her heart protests at nearly being torn in two at the mourning sound that comes from the kitchen.

Becca can’t hide behind her wall anymore.

 _“Shit,_ Bee,” Becca swears as she finally comes around the corner. She’s got a straight line of sight to the apartment’s front door, and what she finds is a broken, pitiful sight.

Bucky sits on the floor, back against the inside of the door. His elbows are on his knees and his head hangs in his hands. The fingers threaded in his hair look so tightly wound that Becca is worried he’s actually going to pull it out.

But it’s his sounds that have Becca racing forward.

“Hey, hey,” she tries to soothe. She gathers his shaking body up as much as she can, which is surely far less than he’s used to lately. She’s glad that at least she can fit her arms around him. “It’s okay. He’s...” she pauses, taking in a big breath of her own. “It’s gonna be okay.”

But an hour later, when Becca finds herself sitting on Bucky’s plush new couch with her brother’s head in her lap, his body still wracked with sobs that sound nothing short of agony, she begins to wonder if ‘okay’ will ever be enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ❗ **Sensitivity Warning** : This chapter is a series of Bucky having a very, very stressful time in his college environment. It is also a coincidence that the posting date aligns with the date in the fic—which is midterms week for Bucky, and also for most students at the time of posting. I don't know if this would be considered a "trigger," but if you think you might easily catch secondhand stress (lasting beyond your time spent reading) or panic while reading about Bucky's experience (note the new tag for "Panic Attacks"), you may want to consider skipping this chapter. In fact, **if you are a student having a hard time with exam week and you are about to read this chapter, I am encouraging you to wait until after your exams are over.** You are responsible for taking your own mental health seriously.
> 
> ...All that said, enjoy ❤

* * *

**b u c k y**

| m a r c h 1 2, 2 0 2 6 |

| _thursday_ |

“Hey, Buckster—did you finish problem nine yet?”

Bucky lifts his tired eyes from where they’ve been staring blankly at the screen of his graphing calculator. He stares at his friend instead and tries to process the question in his muddled brain.

“Um, no,” he mumbles, looking down at the number scrawled on his notebook paper. “Sorry, Max. I’m still on four.”

“Oh.” Max flicks the eraser of his pencil against the library’s study room table, tapping out a fidgety rhythm. “Cool. Let me know when you get there. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

“Unlikely,” Bucky laughs. He runs his hand through his hair and tries his best to not pull it out completely. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned studying for calc with you this semester, it’s that if you don’t get it, I’m _definitely_ not gonna get it.”

Bucky turns back to his calculator. He catches sight of the time on Max’s digital watch in the process.

“Shit,” he swears. “Is it really almost ten? Fuck. I gotta go.” There are a few more curses uttered under his breath as he starts packing up, grabbing his notebook, pencils, and laptop, stuffing everything into his backpack. “I’ve got lab at seven-thirty in the morning.”

Max’s eyebrows furrow, making the freckles on his nose stitch together.

“But aren’t labs all done until after Spring Break?”

“Not for me,” Bucky answers, shaking his head as he tries to zip up his heavy, overstuffed bag. “I have to make up that titration lab I missed when I was sick.”

“Oh, yeah,” Max says. “I forgot you caught that flu.”

Bucky chuckles dryly. “I sure as hell didn’t. I’m still trying to catch up with all the things I missed.” He dons his peacoat and scarf before slinging his backpack over his shoulder, grabbing his half-empty cup of chai tea from the table. “Sunday night for gen chem? Meet here at seven?”

“Works for me,” Max nods, waving goodbye with the hand holding his pencil. “See ya, buddy.”

Bucky takes the stairs down. He pauses on the inside of the library’s automatic doors and sets his cup down so he can pull on his gloves; it may be spring next week, but it’s still snowing outside.

The parking situation is the only reason Bucky is glad he’s been on campus for going on fourteen hours now; arriving at eight o’clock in the morning guarantees a fairly good selection of spaces most Thursdays. He trudges through the lot and listens to the slushy, old snow crunching beneath his feet until he reaches the blue Chevy— _his_ Chevy now, he reminds himself—and climbs in, turning the ignition as fast as possible to get the cab warmed up.

Bucky is turning out of the parking lot when his stomach starts rumbling, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since lunch. He sighs; his eyes scan the road as he heads home, but none of the quick eating places or drive-through restaurants look appetizing, so he decides to hit up the sandwich shop next to his apartment. It’s not his favorite, but at least he can get the big size and have half of it leftover to eat for lunch tomorrow.

He gives himself a mental pat on the back for thinking ahead. Organizing and acquiring food always feels like just one more task during the already busy midterms season.

Bucky opens the door to his apartment with his backpack hanging heavy off of one arm while he holds the sack with his sandwich in the other. He lugs the bag upward to set it down on the kitchen table, letting it go with a _thud_.

He scarfs down one half of his turkey club so quickly he’s surprised he doesn’t choke. Bucky is wrapping the other half up and putting it in the refrigerator when his phone pings twice in quick succession. He pulls it out of his pocket.

**becs** [10:17 PM]

_Mom told me to tell you that you left your ball cap at the house._

**becs** [10:18 PM]

_...She wants to know when you plan to come get it._

Bucky reads the messages and groans. His recent attempts at extending goodwill with hopes of salvaging some kind of relationship with his mother have come with the consequence of being pestered nonstop. He feels much worse for Becca, of course. Mom treats her like her own private messenger.

**Sent** [10:20 PM]

_Tell her I don’t know when I’ll be back around for dinner. Midterms. See you guys when I can._

He heads to the bedroom and connects his phone to his bedside charger before hopping into the shower. The hot water feels amazing after such a long, cold day. He’s been looking forward to scrubbing the invisible grime of eraser dust and spilled tea off his skin all day, but he doesn’t linger for any longer than it takes to warm up and get clean.

Bucky towels off his wet hair the best he can and changes into his favorite set of sleep clothes. He grabs his phone again, setting the alarm for six-thirty the next morning, and then he’s not even fully laying on the mattress before he’s pressing the top name on his contacts list and putting the phone to his ear.

It only has to ring once.

_“Hey, sweetheart.”_

Bucky lets out a long, heavy exhale. He can feel the tension melting away from his shoulders already.

“Daddy…”

Both he and Steve know that Bucky isn’t trying to dive right into something sexy by starting their call with a whisper of that name; that’s not what it’s about. In their two months living apart, that special name has taken on a bigger role in their relationship. _Daddy_ is no longer just the strong, loving man who holds him and touches him gently and wrings long, earth-shattering orgasms from him. Now, _Daddy_ is who Bucky goes to at the end of the day when he needs a tender voice in his ear and reassurances that tomorrow will be better.

God… He loves Steve so much.

 _“Oh, Buck,”_ Steve answers with soft sympathy. _“That kind of day again?”_

Bucky closes his eyes. He imagines he’s laying on top of Steve, cheek pressed into his solid, strong chest. He can almost feel the slight scratchiness of wiry blond hair against the side of his jaw.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “Again.”

Bucky lays back with his head on his pillow, one leg beneath the comforter, and he regales Steve with every single thing that went wrong with his Thursday. Steve is a good sport—a _fantastic_ sport—same as every other day. His rich voice rumbles through the phone with sympathetic humming sounds, sometimes asking questions, other times cutting in to provide sincere affirmations whenever Bucky gets down on himself about something he screwed up.

He’s the perfect boyfriend.

He’s the perfect _partner._

Bucky’s chest hurts.

“But, um. Yeah,” Bucky mumbles. “I don’t know. It just makes me more worked up even talking about his stupid class. I should stop.” He sighs again and rolls over onto one side, adjusting the phone against his ear. “What did you do today?”

 _“Thought about you, mostly,”_ Steve answers. Bucky can almost hear the bittersweet upward tilt at the corner of Steve’s lips. _“Measured out some lumber.”_

Bucky’s eyebrows pinch together. “For what?”

_“For that chicken coop I’m going to build you.”_

Bucky’s laughter fills the connection. He’s sure Steve can tell he’s rolling his eyes and smiling, even if he can’t see him.

“You’re ridiculous,” he giggles, but then his laughter subsides. “You know I’m not going to be able to take care of chickens for at least another year and a half. And that’s only if I get into a distance degree program somewhere. If I can do school from the farm.”

 _“So?”_ Steve answers. _“Could take a long time to build a coop.”_

The smile begins to return to Bucky’s face.

“Nah… I think you’re just bored without me. Can’t take more than a week to build a coop for all of—what? Twenty chickens?” he asks. “How many yard eggs does it take to sustain a super soldier’s diet?”

 _“Oh, at_ least _twenty eggs a day,”_ Steve says seriously. _“You’ll be a busy chicken farmer, baby boy.”_

Bucky shivers at the pet name. It never gets old.

“Okay…” he says. “So you got ahead on a project. What else did you do?”

 _“Mm,”_ Steve hums, voice deeper now. _“Took a long shower and thought about you.”_

A warm, electric thrill shoots up Bucky’s spine. He grins to himself, returning to lay on his back.

“Yeah?” he says, making his voice sound as husky as he can. “What _about_ me?”

_“Was thinking about last month. About the first time I came up to visit.”_

And _oh—_ that is a very specific kind of thought. Bucky recalls, too, how Steve had driven up to see him after the four longest weeks of Bucky’s life. But, first—the night before—he’d given Bucky direct, strict instructions concerning how he should prepare for Steve’s arrival.

( _“You know how much your Daddy loves to spend time opening you up,”_ he’d said. _“Nice and slow. Easy and sweet. I always take care of my baby. But Daddy’s going to need to get in_ _you, sweetheart. Daddy’s going to need to have you more than he’s ever needed it before, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait. You’ll need to use four of your own fingers, lots of slick. Then you’ll have to get out your biggest plug—”_ )

_“—Buck? You there, baby?”_

Bucky blinks several times and tries to focus his eyes in the bleary, dim bedroom while he brings himself back to Steve’s voice. His dick has given a few interested twitches in the confines of his boxers, but he’s still too tired and stressed to actually get hard. He knows that’s not where Steve is trying to take this, anyways.

“Yeah,” he says, blushing for no one but himself to know about. “Sorry. Your shower thoughts distracted me for a second.”

The raspy sound of Steve’s deep chuckling fills Bucky’s ears like molasses being poured into a jar. _“Sorry, sweetheart.”_

They talk for a while longer about everything and nothing, mostly just to hear each other’s voices. Bucky can feel himself start to drift, and he knows Steve hears his longer pauses and slurred words. He also knows Steve will stay on the line until long after it falls silent.

“I miss you,” Bucky whispers tiredly. His heart clenches between his lungs.

_“Not as much as I miss you.”_

Bucky can’t stop his sleepy grin. It’s become a part of their routine; Bucky will tell Steve he misses him, and Steve will reply the same way every time—even now, when they’ve only just seen each other yesterday morning.

His birthday had been two days ago, on Tuesday. They’d spent the past Friday through Sunday together at Bucky’s apartment—as scheduled, every four weeks—but with midterms coming and Bucky being behind on two different research papers, Steve hadn’t extended his visit the way they both would have wanted. Instead, Steve had told Bucky to ‘pencil him in’ for a special birthday call at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening. Bucky had happily agreed, looking forward to it, wondering if Steve was going to have him turn on his camera and use one of his toys on himself for Steve to watch.

But when Tuesday rolled around, Bucky’s doorbell rang at seven o’clock sharp. On the other side had been Steve wearing an incredibly handsome and dapper suit—a _suit_ —with a garment bag for Bucky hanging from his hand.

Bucky can now say he’s been to the nicest steakhouse in Indianapolis. He can also say there isn’t a single flat surface in his apartment that he hasn’t been fucked into.

 _“Go to sleep, sweet boy,”_ Steve says when Bucky falls quiet, halfway into dreams of that night.

“Mm. Okay, Daddy.”

Bucky puts his phone on speaker and lays it next to his head on the pillow. The line falls silent, save for the comforting, faint sounds of Steve breathing.

“Hey—Daddy?” Bucky slurs suddenly, just when he’s almost dipped into sleep.

_“What is it, baby?”_

“It snowed here today. Tonight.”

Steve chuckles quietly. The sound floats through the speaker and fills Bucky’s bedroom.

 _“What a difference distance can make,”_ Steve says. _“It’s still cold, but not a single snowflake for me.”_

Bucky hums his wordless response. He burrows further into his pillow.

“Hey, Daddy?” he says again.

_“Yes, Buck?”_

“Did the snow on the wheat melt yet?”

It’s the same question Bucky has been asking Steve every night for the past two weeks, ever since the beginning of March. This winter has been cold, colder than normal. But Bucky knows spring has to come—eventually. One way or another.

 _“Not yet,”_ Steve answers. His breathy sigh filters through the phone. _“But it will.”_

Bucky exhales a full volume of his lungs. He tucks his other leg under the comforter, pulling it up to his shoulders.

He falls asleep before he can hear the snow outside turn into sleet beating down against the windows.

—

| _friday_ |

The clock on Bucky’s phone reads seven thirty-four. He growls at it as though doing so will make time reverse by four minutes so he can actually be on time for his make-up lab.

“Shit…”

The hallways on the lab floors of the science building are long, and Bucky’s lab room is altogether too far away from the elevator. He half-runs across the linoleum until he finally reaches the door, which miraculously hasn’t been closed yet.

For the sake of his own mental health, Bucky will consider that ‘catching a break.’

The instructor is writing down directions on the whiteboard when he enters, so thankfully his back is turned while Bucky quietly takes his spot at the lab bench. He sets down his backpack as silently as he can and unzips it, digging his hand in to search for his lab notebook.

He searches. And he searches.

And his lab notebook is not in his backpack.

Well.

Fuck.

—

| _saturday_ |

> _Question No. 8: Calculate the area enclosed by the curve y = 2x - x 2 and the x-axis._

Bucky reads the question twice, chewing on the eraser at the end of his mechanical pencil. He tastes graphite on his tongue.

“Origin is zero…” he mutters to himself quietly enough to not disturb his neighbor at the other end of the library’s wide table. He puts his pencil to his notebook paper and starts scribbling out each step in the problem. “So _x_ here is zero, and _x_ there is—fuck, wait.”

The pencil makes a small _thud_ sound as Bucky lets it go from his grip, dropping it onto the paper. He puts his head in one hand and rubs the tender sinus spot between his eyebrows with the thumb of his other.

Bucky wonders if it would bother the other students around him furiously cramming for tests if he were to start banging his head against the table. He’s worked this practice quiz _twice_ already with his study group, and yet, he can’t reproduce the solution to a problem he’s literally already solved. He feels utterly useless.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks. _I’ll come back to it._

Bucky flips over the sheet. He stares.

> _Question No. 9: Find the area bounded by the curves x = y 3 \- y and x = 1 - y4_

Motherfucker.

Scooting his chair backward so he can reach under the table and into his bag, Bucky grabs his phone from the outside pocket. He opens the messaging app.

**Sent** [2:37 PM]

_What are you doing right now?_

Bucky sets the phone down next to his notebook. He flips the packet back to the first page, hoping he can read over the problems he’s already solved and find something that will help him.

His phone buzzes a few minutes later.

**max** [2:40 PM]

_At work. My shift goes until six. Why?_

Bucky groans to himself more loudly than he should. He’s scheduled to meet his T.A. for English class at a coffee shop at five-thirty so he can get her help on his research paper, and he knows his friend has a study session for a class Bucky isn’t in starting at seven.

He’s about to reply to Max with a ‘never mind’ when another text comes through.

**Daddy** [2:41 PM]

_Hey baby boy._

**Daddy** [2:41 PM]

_I know you’re working hard. Did you stop to eat lunch?_

Bucky’s stomach tingles with butterflies like it always does when Steve texts him, but it also growls at the thought of food. He’s been sustaining himself on caffeine and caffeine alone this afternoon.

**Sent** [2:43 PM]

_Not yet. I’ll grab a salad from the cafe after I finish this quiz._

**Daddy** [2:44 PM]

_Good boy. Send me a picture when you do._

Bucky smiles to himself, rolling his eyes. Of course Steve wants proof that he’s taking care of himself.

**Sent** [2:44 PM]

_Will do._

**Sent** [2:45 PM]

_I love you._

**Daddy** [2:45 PM]

_I love you too, sweetheart._

Bucky stores his phone away, focusing back on the paper in front of him with a sigh.

> _Question No. 1: Find the area of the region bounded above by y = x 2 \+ 1, bounded below by y = x, and bounded on the sides by..._

—

| _sunday_ |

The alarm on Bucky’s phone is always jarring in the morning, no matter how often he changes it to a different tone in hopes that it will wake him more gently than the last one he tried.

He rolls over in bed with a groan, grabbing his phone from the charger and stopping the alarm. It’s seven o’clock—on a Sunday.

And Bucky has to get up to study.

“Jesus _Christ…”_

He needs to get up. Like, now. He needs to brush his teeth and eat breakfast, but, oh—that’s right—he actually needs to shower first because he’d been too exhausted the night before when he’d arrived home to do anything but fall into bed with Steve’s voice in his ear.

_Fuck it._

This is no way to start a Sunday—midterms season or not.

The phone rings only twice.

 _“Baby,”_ Steve’s voice greets warmly, but there’s a hint of concern behind his tone. _“Good morning. You really up already?”_

Bucky grumbles incoherently into the microphone. Steve sounds like he’s stifling a laugh.

“Yeah. Got… chemistry and shit to do. Don’t wanna get up yet.”

_“Mm, glad you called, then. I always love hearing your voice.”_

It’s sort of cathartic for Bucky: beginning his day by getting to complain and worry aloud to Steve about what seems like an impossible mountain of tasks ahead of him. He feels so powerless right now—four exams in one week, two papers due, an off-site field trip to attend for his Intro to Engineering project right smack-dab in the middle of it all—because Bucky is starting to doubt he’s got much more to give than what he’s already giving.

At least he has Steve.

 _“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,”_ Steve muses once Bucky has talked himself into an endless loop of frustration and is very much in need of a distraction. _“Going to be above freezing.”_

Torn away from his previous mess of thoughts, Bucky finds his breath catching in his throat.

“So, um,” he starts, sitting up in bed. “So the snow on the field will melt?”

He can hear Steve’s smile on the other end of the line.

 _“It should. But remember, baby_ ,” Steve cautions. _“The wheat will look brown no matter how healthy it is at first. It could take days, even weeks for us to know if it’s going to be healthy.”_

Bucky knows he should feel a dampening of the hopes rising in his chest after Steve’s reality check, but he doesn’t. He’s just… _excited._

He throws the comforter away from his body, turning to put his feet on the floor.

Maybe he can attack the day, after all.

—

| _monday_ |

“Five more minutes!” the instructor calls from his spot in front of the whiteboard.

Bucky looks up from his test. He scans the room with his eyes and finds he’s one of only five or six people still left trying to finish their test, a scant amount compared to the hundred or so that were packed into this lecture chamber sixty minutes ago. Everyone else has already flown through their exam packet and had extra time to double-check their answers before grabbing their bag and handing their papers to the proctor on their way out.

His eyes return to his sheet. Bucky is on question twenty.

Of thirty.

“Four more minutes!”

—

“It’s just… _fuck_. I hate it. I hate it so much.”

Bucky grabs a tissue from his end table to wipe his eyes and nose. He feels so stupid right now—a grown man crying over what was surely a failed chemistry exam. He’d be embarrassed if the person on the other end of the line were anyone but his partner.

Steve has witnessed him crying countless times by now.

 _“Sweetheart, listen to me,”_ Steve says calmly. _“It was just one bad test. You’re only halfway through the semester. You’ve got plenty of time to pull your grade up.”_

Bucky sniffles, balling up the tissue.

“But that test was worth, like... thirty percent of my grade.”

 _“Okay,”_ Steve allows. _“But that means there’s all these other things that make up seventy percent. It will be okay. You haven’t failed anything—or anyone.”_

It’s barely eight o’clock in the evening, but Bucky already feels exhausted, although it’s emotionally more than physically this time. He rises from the couch and decides to head towards the bedroom so he can at least lay down on his bed.

They talk on the phone about school for a while longer. Steve does an impressive job of continuing to calm Bucky down; by the time another twenty minutes have passed, Bucky is actually starting to believe Steve’s reassurances. Maybe he really can pull himself out of this hole.

But Bucky is stressed; he’s stiff. He desperately wants to be in Steve’s arms instead of just in Steve’s ear.

Bucky wants something to relax him.

“I need you, Daddy...” he whispers into the phone, sprawled out on his bed.

There’s a long exhale on the other end of the line. When Steve speaks again, his voice drops a full octave.

 _“Yeah, baby boy?”_ he husks. _“Wish your Daddy was touching you?”_

Hot electricity sparks and fizzles inside each nerve along Bucky’s spine.

“Yes,” he breathes in answer. “Need it. Need you.”

_“Then you’re going to listen to my voice and do everything I tell you to do. If you do that, I promise we’ll make you feel good.”_

Bucky whimpers and nods furiously as though Steve can hear the sound of it. Maybe he can.

“Okay, yes. _Yes._ I want that.”

 _“Good boy,”_ Steve purrs. _“Did you change when you got home?”_

“Yes, Daddy,” Bucky answers dutifully. “I’m wearing my boxers and my favorite shirt.”

Steve makes a rumbling sound of approval. Bucky can imagine him licking his lips.

_“Sweet thing… Alright. Take off your underwear. Leave Daddy’s shirt on.”_

Bucky sets down the phone on speaker and moves around on the sheets, discarding his boxers and doing as he’s told by not removing Steve’s huge sweatshirt. He puts the phone next to his head on the pillow.

 _“Perfect,”_ Steve coos when Bucky’s shuffling stops. _“So perfect for me. Now, I want you to open up Daddy’s favorite drawer and get out your special new toy.”_

Bucky can’t stop the moan that escapes his throat. One of the many gifts Steve had showered him with on his birthday was a new prostate massager, one that presses and vibrates from both inside and outside and gets snug up against his perineum.

“I—Yes,” he breathes. “Want that.”

_“Then go get it, sweetheart. Don’t forget your slick.”_

Bucky sits up, opening the drawer in his nightstand and getting out the toy as well as a half-used tube of lubricant. He crosses the room quickly to grab a towel from the laundry basket. Bucky hastily lays it on the center of the bed, then situates himself with the phone right next to his ear on speaker and his feet flat and spread on the bed.

“I’m ready, Daddy.”

The insertable width of the massager is thicker than the one they’ve used in the past, so it takes prep with two fingers. Bucky carries it out efficiently. Steve’s voice drips like dark, liquid chocolate as he guides Bucky through opening himself up, talking to him sweetly and slowly as though this is his first time all over again.

 _“Don’t rush. It’s good to feel yourself inside. That’s why Daddy loves it when you squirm on his fingers.”_ There’s a sound on the other end of the line, and Bucky knows Steve is probably rubbing his cock through his pants, teasing himself. _“Tell Daddy what it feels like.”_

 _“Mm,”_ Bucky moans, biting down on his lower lip. “Smooth. Warm.”

Steve’s response is a growl. Bucky scissors his fingers just to feel more of the stretch.

_“Oh, baby boy. That’s how you feel when your Daddy’s got his thick cock up in you. Smooth and hot and tight for me.”_

Steve lets him fuck himself with his fingers for a while longer, telling him to add more lube at one point— _“Get yourself all sweet and wet, be nice”_ —but he doesn’t let Bucky press into his prostate yet. Steve makes Bucky wait.

 _“You think you’re ready now?”_ Steve asks.

Bucky nods again desperately before realizing Steve still can’t see it. He pulls out his fingers and grabs for the massager, coating it with lube.

“Yes, Daddy. And I got my toy ready.”

 _“Good boy,”_ Steve groans. _“So smart. Are you comfortable?”_

Bucky straightens his spine on the mattress and fluffs up the pillow beneath his head. He’s glad Steve wanted him to keep his sweatshirt on; it’s a little cold in his bedroom. His nipples would feel tight and peaked if they were bare.

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes. “Please—Can I…?”

There’s a dark bit of laughter coming through the connection. Bucky has to give his hard dick a perfunctory stoke and a squeeze at the base. He’s leaking against the hem of his shirt.

_“Yes, baby. You can put your toy inside you now. Slow, right?”_

“Right.”

Bucky positions the curved tip of the massager at his wet, loosened hole and begins pushing it inside one centimeter at a time. He moans when his rim stretches over the widest point. The noise gets him a responding groan from Steve’s end.

 _“Slow,”_ Steve repeats, voice low. _“Want you to really get to feel what Daddy is telling you to do to yourself_. _”_

Bucky whimpers when the outer branch of the toy starts pressing up against that soft spot beneath his balls at the same time the inner curve grazes over the bump of his prostate.

“Daddy,” he gasps, slowly beginning to fuck himself with little in-and-out motions. “Daddy, it’s all the way in now. It feels so good.”

_“Perfect, baby. Daddy’s so happy with you. What do you think I want you to do next?”_

Bucky’s belly tickles with excitement and anticipation.

“I… Should I turn it on?”

 _“Smart boy,”_ Steve praises. _“Go ahead. Press that button for me.”_

Bucky pushes the button without remembering to turn it down to its lowest setting first. The toy roars to life in his palm and inside him. His lungs produce an inhuman sound.

 _“Oh,_ baby… _”_ Steve growls. _“You keep making noises like that and Daddy’s gonna have to pull his big cock out.”_

The sensuous grit and smooth, rounded gravel in Steve’s voice makes every part of Bucky that isn’t already buzzing light up with heavenly vibrations. He presses the massager harder into his prostate, then backs it off when the feeling is too much.

“Want you to,” he breathes—begs—pulsing the toy against his sweet spot again and pulling away just as fast. He starts up a rhythm. “Want you to get it out and think about me.”

A deep, almost animalistic noise travels through the connection and reverberates in Bucky’s ear.

_“Yeah? You want Daddy to stroke up and down on his own cock while he listens to his boy being sweet with himself?”_

“Daddy—!”

Bucky grabs desperately for his own dick with the hand that isn’t holding the massager. There’s just enough excess lube on his hand to make it nice and slick, turning up wet sounds with each stroke. He knows Steve’s ears won’t miss it.

_“There you go, baby. Jerk yourself off.”_

He turns his head on the pillow and moans right into the microphone. Bucky’s hand is working furiously now, and he’s letting himself press harder with the rounded prongs of the toy. He wants to come so badly.

An intensely delicious thought pops into his head as he listens to Steve’s deadly voice guiding him, telling him what to do, how to touch himself, how to fuck himself. The thought is really a question—one Bucky might be too nervous to ask were he not somehow floating in the stratosphere with his back against the mattress.

“D-Daddy,” he stutters. “Do you— _oh!_ —H-have you ever used a toy like this one?”

Steve makes something like a breathless choking sound on the other end of the line.

 _“Oh, sweet boy,”_ he moans, almost laughing. _“Daddy_ has _used them. I’ve got two of them in my own toy box in the closet.”_

Bucky’s whine is high and long as he tries to process Steve’s admission while still massaging his own sweet spot, letting the vibrations sing through his flesh and blood and drag him through mind-bending pleasure. His balls are beginning to tighten up and draw inward.

“Wh-when was the last time you used one?” he asks, and his voice breaks on every other word.

 _“Mm...”_ Bucky can hear the sounds of Steve’s hand flying over his cock. He wonders if he’s using lube or just his own natural wetness. _“It’s been a while for me, baby.”_

And it’s the sensual drawl in Steve’s deep voice that finally does it. Bucky can’t help it anymore; he _has_ to imagine it. He has to picture Daddy’s massive, hard body with its masculine matting of hair and infinite lines of strong muscle as Steve lays back on their mattress at home, feet flat on the quilt, knees bent while those thick thighs spread open wide, _wide_ , because his Daddy owns that bed, it’s his dominion, he can take up as much space in it as he wants. Bucky’s mind races, thinking about how Steve might look putting something inside himself. He wonders if he would ever let Bucky put fingers in him while he sucks on the tip of his cock, or—or maybe even _lick Daddy out_ , and he wonders if his hole is pink like his cheeks get when his fair skin flushes, or maybe—

_“Sweetheart?”_

Bucky moans, tightening his fist around his dick. It pulses and weeps in his hand.

“I— _oh_ —!” he whimpers in answer. “Yes, D-Daddy?”

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line when all Bucky can hear is Steve breathing heavily. He bites down on his bottom lip hard, looking for an outlet for the tension wringing through him, but he doesn’t want to be messy and draw blood. The pulsing pain might bring him back from the edge, and goddamnit, Bucky wants to come.

_“Are you thinking you might want to put your little cock in Daddy one day?”_

Bucky shouts as his dick erupts with strings of white all over his fist, his stomach, the hem of his sweatshirt. He sings out Steve’s name as he comes, his body clenching and unclenching in waves over the solid mass of the toy inside him.

He’s still lying in his own mess almost a minute later, finally managing to turn off the massager, when his consciousness resurfaces well enough to hear Steve’s groaning and growling with the endless wet sounds, the low rumbles, all of it a symphony of auditory sensations as Steve comes to his own long, drawn-out completion.

 _“Goddamn, baby boy,”_ Steve breathes. He sounds like he might be laughing. _“Every time I think I can’t get any luckier, you do something like that and throw me for a loop.”_

They lie together in a breathless state of quiet, recovering, for almost ten minutes. It isn’t complete silence; Steve always treats phone sex the same way he does any other kind of sex, making sure Bucky comes down from it easy afterwards. He talks to Bucky, showers him with all kinds of saccharine nonsense and sweet, loving praises. When Bucky is feeling up to it, Steve has him stand up and take the phone with him to the bathroom, where he tells Bucky exactly which washcloth to use and how slowly to wipe it over his own skin.

_“I love you, sweetheart,”_ Steve murmurs through the phone as Bucky returns to the bedroom and puts on his boxers. _“I think you should go to sleep now.”_

“But it’s only nine o’clock,” Bucky argues, pouting his lower lip out. “I need to study for calc.”

_“Do you think you’ll be able to focus on your work right now?”_

Bucky thinks about his answer for a few seconds. He decides he needs to be honest.

“No…”

_“Exactly. But I know you needed that from Daddy, and now it’s time to get some rest. Tomorrow is a fresh, new day.”_

Bucky’s still stressed, but he’s also a good boy. He does as he’s told.

He’s dreaming before nine-thirty even hits, Steve’s soft voice drifting through the phone on his pillow.

—

| _tuesday_ |

The sounds of the library’s Starbucks during midterms week buzz in Bucky’s ears: the grinding of coffee beans, the barista calling out customer’s names, the sounds of frothing milk for triple-espresso lattes.

The guy in front of him finishes his order and tosses his change into the tip jar before stepping aside to wait for his coffee. Bucky steps up to the register.

“Hey, Bucky!” the familiar barista greets with a wave. There’s a wide, bright smile on her face as there always is.

“Hey, Mandy,” he says. “Venti green tea, please?”

Mandy grabs a large cup from her stack to the side, writing his order on it.

“What—No chai today?”

“Nah.” Bucky shakes his head. “Actually got some sleep last night. Don’t feel like I need the caffeine yet.”

Mandy nods. Bucky swipes his card while she sets the cup down, and she says something to the other barista—the guy who’s working the counter. Bucky watches them switch places so she’s no longer on register.

He moves to the side and waits for his drink.

“They let you study on your breaks here?” he asks Mandy, making casual talk while she works.

“Don’t need to,” she shrugs. She finishes up what looks like a cappuccino for one of the other customers, plopping light, fluffy milk foam on top. “I’m taking a light load this semester. It’s been pretty nice, actually.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows, laughing.

“Wow,” he says. “I’m definitely jealous.”

“Yeah, I can’t complain.” Mandy puts a lid on the drink and calls out the name written on the side, leaning over to deliver it. She gives Bucky a quick up-and-down with her eyes.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says, returning to her machine and picking up the cup that says ‘Bucky’ from the line of waiting orders, “but the circles under your eyes say that midterms week is kicking your ass. How many you got left?”

Bucky groans just thinking about his answer. Mandy pours hot, steaming water into the cup and opens a packet with a teabag.

“Well, let’s see. Gotta turn in this English paper tonight before midnight.” Bucky starts counting items off on his fingers. “And then for exams, I scheduled comp-sci for tomorrow at eight in the evening, calc on Thursday night at seven, and American history on Friday afternoon.” He sighs dramatically. “I haven’t even _touched_ my notes for that last one. Haven’t had the time.”

Mandy hands him the hot cup with the bag in it. Bucky takes it from her carefully so as not to burn himself.

“Sorry, man,” she says sympathetically. “I’ve been there. It’s a total nightmare.”

“Tell me about it. Oh! And I almost forgot. For Intro to Engineering, there’s this field trip to Purdue that I’ve actually been looking forward to, but they decided to schedule it for the middle of the day _this_ Thursday.” He dunks his tea bag in and out slowly, watching the liquid as it steeps, growing darker. “Which means I’ve got, like, two hours when I get back before I have to go take my calc test. Hardly any time to cram. That’s going to be the worst one of them all.”

“My condolences,” she says as Bucky drips honey into his cup at the milk bar, stirring. “I’ll see you later, I’m sure?”

Bucky chuckles. “Yeah, this is the one day this week I don’t actually have any exams. I’m going to stay holed up studying in this library until my brain melts out of my skull.”

“Alright,” she laughs, waving. “Later, then.”

—

Bucky stares at his laptop screen, backspacing and typing the same word over and over like he’ll eventually know what the next sentence in his paragraph is supposed to be. He’s been working on this particular task—finishing his English paper—for over four hours now, and he’s still got an entire section and a conclusion to knock out.

 _Oh, God._ And it’s only three o’clock. He’s not sure he has the stamina to keep this going for as long as he needs to.

Bucky looks to either side of him. The guy on his right has what looks like noise canceling headphones on, and he’s clearly engrossed in his textbook. He turns to his left and finds a red-headed girl that looks vaguely familiar; she might be in his chemistry class.

“Hey,” he whispers, leaning her direction. “Can I ask for a quick favor?”

The girl looks up from her laptop. She has a kind smile.

“Sure,” she answers. “What’s up?”

“I need to step out for a second.” Bucky gestures to his laptop and heavy bag. “If you’re going to be here for a while longer, do you mind watching my stuff?”

“Yeah, of course.” She gives him a nod. “I’ll be here at least another hour.”

Bucky shoots her a grateful look. He reaches into his bag to grab his phone.

“Thanks so much. I’ll only be gone for, like, maybe fifteen minutes.”

Snatching his coat up as he walks away, Bucky shrugs it on and heads for the library’s exit. It’s a nice enough day outside, especially compared to the previous days this week; cold, but sunny. He walks out onto the campus quad and enjoys the rush of fresh air flowing into his lungs.

Bucky finds an empty bench in an inviting spot. He pulls his phone out of his pocket as he sits down.

 _“Hey, baby,”_ comes Steve’s voice. _“How’s studying going?”_

“Ugh,” Bucky answers. “This stupid paper won’t just write itself. Needed a break.”

_“Good, that’s good. You need to take breaks sometimes. You’ll burn yourself out more quickly than you can afford to if you don’t.”_

“What are you doing today?” Bucky asks, searching for a distraction.

 _“Just got back from Kelly’s, actually. I think we’re gonna share the workload on a new fence line between our properties.”_ Bucky hears something that sounds like a refrigerator door opening, then the distinctive sound of water being poured into a glass. _“Told her I’d take care of the whole thing, but she wouldn’t have it.”_

“Of course,” Bucky chuckles. He really does like their neighbor. “Tell her ‘hi’ for me next time you see her. Is it sunny there, too?”

 _“It is,”_ Steve answers, the refrigerator door shutting. _“And you know what else, sweetheart?”_

“What?”

 _“It’s above freezing.”_ Bucky can hear a smile in Steve’s voice. _“And it rained this morning.”_

Bucky gasps. Rain in the early spring is a good sign, no doubt, but the fact that the temperature is rising has a meaning of its own.

“So the snow…” he starts.

_“All melted.”_

Bucky’s heart starts pounding in his chest. He knows he shouldn’t be letting his pulse run away, shouldn’t be letting himself get excited, but this is a moment he’s been waiting on for more than six months now, a moment he’s _worked_ towards, and—

—And Bucky’s not even there.

“So, um.” He tries not to let the mixture of excitement and sadness bleed through in his voice. “So the wheat is…”

Steve sighs. _“Bucky...”_

“I know, I know.” Bucky hangs his head in his hands. “It’s going to be brown for a while no matter what,” he recites. “Days or weeks.”

 _“That’s right,”_ Steve agrees. _“But, hey—could turn green in a single day for all we know. I’m just glad you’ll be here all next week for your break.”_

If Steve is glad of it, then Bucky feels wild with bright, vivid glee. It couldn’t be any more perfect that his school’s Spring Break week coincides with the same week of the year that most winter wheat fields in Steve’s part of the state start to turn green.

 _“And you know what else?”_ Steve goes on. Bucky can tell he’s trying to say something that will cheer him up. _“I was watching the local news. They said that a big storm this month—just one real soaker, like that rain that brought me you—could be enough to officially end the drought._ _In weatherman definitions, I guess.”_

“That’s… That’s _amazing_ , Steve,” Bucky smiles—because it really is. “It’s been, what, two years now?”

_“Almost three.”_

“God, that’s… It’s just insane.” Bucky finds himself laughing quietly, incredulously, fingers threaded through his hair. “I can’t wait.”

They chat for a little while longer before Bucky announces that he needs to get back inside. Steve takes a second to remind him to eat like he always does— _“Daddy’s sweet boy cannot subsist on tea alone”_ —and they wrap up their impromptu call.

 _“Just one test tomorrow?”_ Steve asks before they hang up. _“And are you ready for it?”_

“Yeah, actually,” Bucky answers. “Comp-sci tomorrow night. It’s the only one I feel like I’m actually prepared for.”

 _“I’m glad, sweetheart.”_ There’s a series of huffs and soft sounds that play like Steve is tossing himself down onto the couch. _“Go study. I love you—and call me tonight before you go to sleep so I know you’re doing alright.”_

Bucky grins to himself. He’s as in love as he’s ever been with this man.

“I will. And I love you, too,” he says.

Bucky hangs up.

He lets out a heavy breath just to see it steam before walking back inside.

—

| _wednesday_ |

The campus computer testing lab is in the basement of the social sciences building down a series of awkwardly steep exterior steps, which become altogether too slippery when it’s below freezing outside. Bucky scales the staircase downwards and pushes open the door to a thankfully much warmer room.

There is a short line of other students in front of him waiting to pass through the check-in desk. The digital clock on the wall reads five until eight.

The line moves quickly, one person after another swiping their student I.D. card and getting that little green light and a thumbs up from the older woman monitoring the check-in computer. The woman tells each of them their reserved booth number, and they proceed on to take their spots and begin their exams.

By the time it’s Bucky’s turn, he’s got his I.D. out and ready. He swipes it through the reader and steps forward—but the lady behind the desk puts a hand up, the universal sign for ‘stop.’

“Sorry, hun,” she says in a soft, grandmotherly voice. “Can you swipe again? The machine didn’t read it right.”

Bucky smiles at her warmly and nods. He backs up and does as she says, looking down at the card reader this time.

It blinks up at him with a red light.

“Huh,” he says, eyebrows coming together. He swipes again and gets the same result. “Weird. Maybe the magnetic stripe on my card is messed up.” Bucky looks up at the check-in woman. “Can you look me up manually? James Barnes for Computer Science 103? I’ve got an eight o’clock slot.”

The lady behind the desk smiles at him and goes about typing in his information as though this sort of mistake is fairly routine. She checks the spelling of his name with him a few times. Her face begins to scrunch up unpleasantly.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she says. “I don’t see you. Perhaps you scheduled it for a different day?”

“No, that wouldn’t have been possible,” Bucky answers. His pulse is beginning to race. “I booked one of the last available time slots for this test. Can you search again?”

The woman gives him a sympathetic look and resumes typing. She must try a few different things, because she’s silent for a while, but then her face starts to twist into something like pity.

“Oh, dear,” she sighs, and Bucky immediately knows something is very, very wrong. “I do see your test appointment, James… But it was for eight o’clock this _morning_. Not this evening.”

Bucky’s stomach is in his throat. He can feel his hands starting to tremble. The plastic of the I.D. taps up against the swiper as his hand shakes.

“Can—Can you…” he tries to get out, failing. “Can you book me in right now? Is there a free computer?”

“I’m sorry,” she answers, and Bucky can tell she truly means it. It doesn’t help. “The only thing you can do is talk to your professor about rescheduling. My program says this is the last day time slots are available for this course, but maybe...”

“I—I’ll…” Bucky stammers. He’s breaking into a sweat all over. “Thank you. I’ll t-talk… talk to him, I…” He stops and swallows loudly. “Thanks again.”

Bucky is already turning and practically stumbling for the door by the time he gets the last word out. The cold air hits his face as he steps out under the blue glow of twilight in the evening sky, but the oxygen feels hot in his lungs, kerosene grazing an already lit match and engulfing his chest in white-hot, pounding panic.

He’s missed a test.

He’s missed an entire _test—_ an exam he probably would have aced—just because he wrote down the wrong time.

And it’s becoming hard to breathe.

Bucky barely completes his crawl up the icy stairs back onto flat pavement without slipping and falling backwards. His eyes dart around a collection of buildings that should be familiar to him by now— _were_ familiar ten minutes ago—but now he feels too dizzy.

He’s getting really scared.

Bucky eventually gathers his breath and his bearings well enough to target the building closest to him. He rushes through the doors into a dimly lit, empty hallway of classrooms with only one objective on his mind: he needs to find a safe space with plenty of air to slow down his lungs.

He needs to call Steve.

Midterms week means that even night classes are canceled in favor of allowing students time to study and take self-scheduled exams, so Bucky is able to find an empty classroom quickly enough. He closes the door behind him as hard and as recklessly as his arms want him to, hoping the resulting slam isn’t so egregious that someone will come around to check on the sound.

He doesn’t make it to a desk; Bucky doesn’t even turn on a light. He melts against the inside of the door, limbs and hands trembling as he pulls out his cell phone and prays he still remembers how to hit the right buttons.

“S-Steve,” Bucky hiccups when the line goes live. He can’t catch his breath. _“Steve…”_

 _“Shit, baby,”_ Steve swears. There are shuffling sounds like he’s setting something down, maybe pausing a task. His voice hardens. _“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”_

Bucky shakes his head from side to side even when he knows Steve can’t see him. He just needs to keep moving his frozen bones.

“No, I just—I just…” Bucky starts, but he can’t get the words out. He can hardly breathe.

He can’t do anything right.

Steve has to listen to him bawl and gasp for breath through the line for several more minutes before Bucky can produce a coherent string of words. He’s still clearly alarmed at Bucky’s distress, but Steve seems calm enough knowing that Bucky hasn’t been harmed. He’s patient; Steve whispers an endless number of phrases to try and calm him down, coaching him through basic breathing exercises, reassuring and comforting Bucky the best he can from so many miles away.

 _“Are you feeling any better now, sweetheart?”_ Steve asks gently after five or ten or twenty minutes. _“There’s no rush. We can just keep breathing. You can tell me what happened whenever you’re ready.”_

“Steve, I…” Bucky starts. His breathing is still shaky and choppy, and his nose is running, but at least he’s getting air in his panic-scorched lungs again. “I… I f-fucked up.”

The line goes silent for a minute. Bucky doesn’t know what’s going on in Steve’s head, but he feels instinctively that it’s nothing like judgement. He’s probably just figuring out what to say.

 _“Oh, baby. I’m sure that—whatever happened—it’s something that can be fixed,”_ Steve’s voice is soft and warm like cotton. _“Tell Daddy what happened to you.”_

Bucky suddenly finds himself going from unsteady and unbound to prickled— _annoyed_ by Steve’s choice of words. Steve has immediately assumed something happened _to_ Bucky, even though Bucky has just told him he was the one who fucked up his own situation. He’s always thought of him in that way, Bucky realizes; Steve has always assumed Bucky is perfect and flawless, an angel of a boy without a line of error written into his code.

“It was _my_ fucking fault,” Bucky grits out wetly. He wipes his nose on his coat sleeve, then rubs circles into his temple. “I… I must have written the time down wrong in my planner, or—fuck. I don’t know.” He pauses, squeezing his eyes shut and sucking in a breath. “I missed my test, Steve. I missed an entire midterm exam, and I don’t think there’s any way for me to make it up.”

 _“Sweetheart…”_ Steve sighs. _“I’m so sorry—”_

“—And that was, like, the _one_ fucking test I was actually confident about. It was one of my only chances to keep up my G.P.A., to… fuck.” Bucky pulls at his own hair. “To actually have something good on my resume for this semester, to…”

Bucky can’t stop the new tears that come. He’s gone from strangling panic and blood-chilling fear to anger—pure, incensed _anger_. He’s pissed at himself, he’s pissed at the entire education system, at society’s expectations and its unwillingness to forgive simple mistakes or make space for people that think like him.

 _“Bucky,”_ Steve calls softly, but it’s not enough to calm him anymore. _“Listen to me. Everything is going to be alright. It’s going to be okay—”_

“—You can’t _know_ that!” Bucky shouts into the empty room. He yanks his head from his hands and stares forward at the rows of dimly lit desks sitting nearly in darkness. “Fuck, I just… I _hate_ this, Steve. I hate all of this.”

Steve lets out a long breath. Bucky is starting to sense his frustration.

 _“I know it feels too hard right now, but you can do this. I_ know _you can. This is just one week, and that was just one test. You can keep going, and you will. I know you will because you_ want _this—you want to finish this program. You’ll make it happen, baby boy.”_

Bucky listens to Steve’s words and lets the line fall silent for too long. When he does speak again, it’s only after several strong, long breaths, inhaling his resolution and gripping it tightly enough that it won’t get away.

“What if…” he starts. “What if I don’t want that?”

 _“Bucky…”_ comes the sigh from the other end of the line.

“No, Steve,” he says firmly, leaning away from the wall like he’s going to get on his feet just to feel more confident for having stood up. “Seriously. What if this isn’t what I want anymore?”

_“Look… Sweetheart. I understand you’re feeling that way right now, but I think that’s the frustration talking—”_

“It’s _not_ ,” Bucky seethes through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring. This time, he does stand up. “And it’s not just this week, it’s… fuck! It’s more than just trying to keep up with these exams.” He starts pacing across the empty classroom, leaving his backpack against the wall. “It’s… It’s not having you here with me. It’s feeling like I’m so damn alone all the time.” Impulsively, Bucky kicks the basket attachment under a desk just to have something to do with his sudden fury. “This is too fucking _hard!”_

The ire in his ribcage crests out of the hot flame Bucky’s been trying to smother with fuel. Vibrations from the bullied metal basket send quiet but powerful soundwaves reverberating throughout the room, bouncing off the whiteboard before finally returning to buzz in Bucky’s ears and mock him from inside his own head. He falls back to the floor, collapsing, almost dropping the phone when he tries to catch himself.

“It _hurts_ , Steve,” he sobs painfully. “It hurts more and more every time I fail. It hurts every time I have to watch you leave.”

Steve’s breathing changes. When he does finally speak, there’s a quiet trepidation sitting low in his voice.

_“Buck, if you... If we need to talk about changing things between us so you can focus on—”_

“—No,” Bucky cuts in with a nasty bite. “I don’t _want_ to change things between us. I want… I wanna not be in school anymore. I want to be able to say that I’m really doing something with my life without feeling like someone is wringing my neck. I want—fuck—I want my self-worth to not be tied to my goddamn _grades_.”

His throat hurts, his legs are shaking. Everything inside him is bouncing between anger and despair and he doesn’t know which feeling to assign to these tears.

“I just want to go home and be on the farm,” he continues, quietly now. “I just… I just want to be with you.”

Bucky’s thoughts are scattered, bouncing from one side of his skull to the next fast enough that he can’t grab hold of just one. He is his own assailant, unable to decide whether to choose fight or flight. It feels like everything that could possibly come out of his mouth right now would sound stupid and ugly; immature. He’s like a small child throwing a tantrum.

 _“Sweetheart,”_ Steve starts, his tone careful enough to handle a wild animal. _“Please try to calm down and listen to me.”_ He pauses, drawing in a big breath. _“I understand, okay? I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t measure up, or to think you don’t have what it takes to leave a mark on the world. But I need you to remember that you’re_ always _going to be enough for me—and for anyone that matters. You have so much to give to the world already. Please don’t—”_ and it sounds like platitudes, and it sounds like cooing and clichés and everything banal about inspirational quotes, and it sounds like _Captain_ goddamn _America_ and Bucky can’t fucking take it.

“—Oh, I’m sure all of that is easy for _you_ to say,” he spits. “When you felt this way, someone was there to give you a shot and stick you in a microwave and hit a fucking button to make everything better.”

It’s hearing his own words that finally douses the fire in his chest. Bucky regrets them as soon as they’re out in the world. The worst part is that he doesn’t even believe them.

But Bucky is a worthless fuck-up in as many ways as he can find to be today, too proud, too damn angry to draw out his own poison. He lets dead air hang instead.

Steve’s silence is immense; heavy. It’s as though Bucky’s venomous attack has somehow broken gravity and given tremendous weight to even the absence of words.

 _“Bucky,”_ Steve says when he’s finally ready to speak. His voice is low and steady. _“I’m going to choose to believe that you’re only trying to be hurtful towards me because you’re hurting, too. I’m going to choose to believe you don’t mean that. But I’ll say something else.”_

Bucky doesn’t cut in this time, doesn’t try to stop him. There’s something different behind Steve’s tone now, and Bucky can tell that whatever he’s going to say next won’t be said lightly or repeated ever again. He’s never met anyone but Steve Rogers that can radiate that kind of energy across a hundred miles before he even opens his mouth.

 _“Someone once told me that I was a good man before I had the serum. A man who has something to offer, who can give something to people in this world. They told me that I already had all of that inside me. That no serum could create it.”_ He pauses. Bucky can picture Steve wherever he is, jaw set firmly while he stares at the floor as though he’s not yet ready to make eye contact with the world. _“And I think I’d forgotten that for a long time. Being with_ you— _watching_ you _, seeing everything you do_ — _is what reminded me again.”_

Bucky doesn’t know what to do. Steve’s admission lands a perfect, cold punch to his soul, knocking the air out of him and freezing his tongue solid—but he knows it’s not _meant_ to be cold. His words are meant to be real and warm, no matter how frigid and biting Bucky’s been with Steve today, but now Bucky has twisted himself into a state of such unforgiving selfishness that he can’t even receive love the way it’s meant to be given.

“I… I have to go, Steve,” he mutters. “I have to…”

_“Baby...”_

“Please,” he interrupts, stopping Steve in whatever he was going to say to give Bucky an undeserved way out of this. “Just don’t. I’m… I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry.”

Steve starts to say something else, but Bucky doesn’t know what it is. He kills the line before the first word can make it out.

He doesn’t even remember to ask about their wheat.

—

Bucky finishes brushing and rinses his mouth, placing the toothbrush in its holder. He looks at himself in the mirror while he dabs his wet chin off with the towel from the rung.

There’s no escaping it: he looks and feels like absolute shit.

His bed is as cold as it always is when Bucky climbs in. He pulls the comforter up over himself, turning off the lamp and grabbing his phone from the charger—where it’s been since he came home from not taking a test—and looking at the time. It’s almost half past ten.

There are three texts waiting for him.

**Daddy** [9:01 PM]

_Please call me, sweetheart._

**Daddy** [9:32 PM]

_I’m so sorry. I want to do anything I can to make this better for you._

**Daddy** [9:57 PM]

_I’d really like to talk to you again before you fall asleep tonight._

Bucky’s thumb hovers over the dial button. There’s not been a single night he’s gone to bed without first talking to Steve since he left the farm. Steve knows that; Steve would read the absence of his phone call and see its significance for exactly what it is.

He’s drawing in a deep breath and making his final decision when another text comes through.

**Daddy** [10:29 PM]

_Good night, sweet boy. I’m always going to love you._

Bucky sobs, sudden and broken. He drops his phone on the nightstand as though it’s burned his fingers and rolls away from it, curling himself into the fetal position.

He’s not good enough to be an engineer. He’s not even good enough to get into a four-year university to study for it. He’s not good enough to pass a test—or even manage to take one.

And now he’s gone and made certain that he’s not good enough for Steve.

—

| _thursday_ |

As Bucky swipes his debit card at the centralized parking meter and prints his ticket, he realizes two things.

First, he’s never been more glad of his decision to drive his own car alone to Purdue for this field trip instead of carpooling like most of his classmates did. Sure, it’s an hour north of his side of Indianapolis, but now Bucky has free rein to depart as soon as their tour of the engineering facilities is over. And that’s a really, _really_ good thing, because not only is Bucky certain his classmates are going to try to go out somewhere afterwards—most of them are done with their midterms already—but also because Bucky now sees that his student I.D. is not in his wallet, but back home on his kitchen table. Now, he’ll need to stop at his apartment afterwards to pick it up, or he won’t be able to get into his calculus test tonight. Fuck his life.

Second, he realizes that stopping at home to get that I.D. means he’ll be twenty minutes shorter on time for the last-minute studying for calculus he’s depending on. He had planned to have two whole hours to cram, and now he’ll have that much less. Double fuck his life.

Bucky lets out an exasperated sigh as he throws his ticket on his dashboard and locks the truck. He gets out his phone and pulls up the digital map their professor had sent out by email, pointing himself in the direction of the Agricultural and Biological Engineering building.

It’s a long walk across campus from the parking lot, but Bucky gets to his destination with time to spare. He quickly locates his professor and those of his classmates that have already arrived in the lobby, and he chats with them for a little bit before the tour of the building’s facilities starts. It’s nice, actually, talking to humans other than baristas or people in his study groups. It helps get his mind off of the man he’s failing back home—even if just for a second.

After a few minutes spent waiting, a tall woman with dark, curly hair and wide-rim glasses—middle-aged, maybe—walks in and greets Bucky’s professor.

“Good afternoon,” the woman says with a broad, kind smile. “Is this class for the tour of the research floors?”

“It is,” Bucky’s professor nods. “We were waiting for Dr. Meyer.”

The curly-haired woman gives his professor an apologetic look, extending her hand out.

“I’m Addison Keller,” she says, shaking hands. “You can call me Dr. Addy, or even just Addy, if you want. I was asked to step in at the last minute for Dr. Meyer. He’s had a family emergency, but he didn’t want to leave you hanging.”

 _Addison Keller._ The name sounds familiar to Bucky, but he can’t place it.

“Oh, that’s too bad, but I appreciate you taking over.” His professor gestures to the group of fifteen or so students with him. “This is my Introduction to Engineering Principles class. They’re all a little beat from their midterms week,” she laughs, “but they’re still excited to be here and see the facilities.”

“And we’re excited to have them,” Dr. Keller grins. “Shall we start with the robotics floor? It’s certainly not my specialty, but I’ve got some great friends who can help show us around.”

The tour ends up being really cool. There’s something different to see on every floor, from miniature algae farms, to robots that can identify plant types, to labs where they test out food safety. The building says “Agricultural and Biological Engineering” on it, but Bucky can tell pretty quickly that the majority of the research in this department seems to revolve around applications in agriculture. There’s a ton of interesting stuff for him to scribble down in the little notepad he brought—things he could look up later—but every time he starts writing something, he thinks about how neat Steve would find it, and he’s left feeling sad.

He doesn’t know why he stops himself from pulling his phone out of his pocket and texting Steve. Bucky just doesn’t allow himself to have it.

It’s not until they get to the floor with the soil science labs and Dr. Keller starts telling them about a few of the initiatives they’re working on that it finally clicks with Bucky. He knows the reason he finds her name so familiar.

“I’ve got a whole team of graduate students and post-docs working on this project,” she says excitedly, pointing through a window into a room full of people hunched over lab benches. They’re all looking at something Bucky can’t see in hundreds of clear, circular dishes. “It’s a multi-year project, but we’re processing thousands and thousands of data points provided to us by the Upper Midwest wheat specialists at the Purdue Agricultural Extension.” She pauses with a charming wink directed at Bucky’s group. “That’s where I spent most of my time, actually. The widest-reaching agricultural extension in the country.”

And it all falls into place in Bucky’s head: _“Dear Mr. Barnes… from the offices of the Purdue Agricultural Extension and Addison Keller, PhD.”_

Bucky spends the rest of the tour hardly paying attention to anything that’s said. He’s too busy feeling starstruck over his coincidental meeting with the woman whose team was responsible for introducing Bucky and, ultimately, Steve to the crimson clover intercropping concept.

They visit a couple more floors before the tour is over. Bucky’s professor thanks Dr. Keller, then makes a few announcements on housekeeping items for the course while she has all her students together. Most of Bucky’s classmates fidget the whole time.

“Alright, alright,” his professor laughs. Behind her, Dr. Keller waves goodbye to the group and heads down the hallway. “I can see you’re already antsy to get outta here, so go, get out. I’ll see you after Spring Break.”

The rest of Bucky’s group immediately turns and heads in the opposite direction of where Bucky’s eyes are stuck, staring. He doesn’t follow the others; he walks forwards instead, picking up his pace and holding his notebook tight to his chest so as not to drop by accident.

“Dr. Keller?” he calls, trying to catch up to her. “Dr. Keller, wait.”

The doctor stops and turns, looking around until she spots Bucky coming towards her. He can hear the excited conversations of his home-free classmates as they continue down the hall behind him.

“Oh, hello again,” she greets. Her smile seems warm and genuine.

“Hi,” Bucky says, stopping awkwardly in front of her. “I’m, um. My name is Bucky Barnes?” he starts, as though it’s a question. “I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. I’ve actually been writing with you—well, probably someone on your team at the Extension—and I—”

“Barnes,” she repeats, rolling the word around on her tongue. “Yes. Yes, you—you’re the kid out in Bartholomew County, right? The student with the bad soil and all that hopeless wheat?”

Bucky feels his entire face light up. He wonders if this is what it’s like to meet a celebrity and have them actually remember your name.

“Yes!” he replies, probably too enthusiastically. “Yeah—um. That’s me. Except…” He laughs nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m, uh. I’m not actually a student. Well, I _am_.” He gestures dumbly in the direction his classmates just disappeared to. “But I wasn’t then. Back when I was writing those letters.”

“Let me guess,” Dr. Keller says with a quirk to her lip. “You’re a farmer?”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat. That word… _‘farmer.’_ He’s always thought of it as a term that applies to Steve. It’s _Steve’s_ farm. It’s Steve’s tractor, Steve’s land. Sure, he’s come to think of this year’s crop as ‘their wheat,’ but that’s always just been because Bucky helped come up with a few good ideas. He’s never stopped to consider that the term might apply to him as well.

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, straightening his spine. He’s not ashamed to hear pride bleeding through in his voice. “I’m a farmer.”

Dr. Keller chuckles. The lightness of it accentuates her kind features.

“Well, I can’t say you’re the first commercial grower to reach out to my team for advice under the pretense of academic purposes. But I figure that—so long as we can say we didn’t know? No harm, no foul.” She looks over his shoulder down the hall. “Are you going to miss your ride? Your classmates have all gone.”

“Oh, no,” Bucky says with a dorky half-smile and shake of his head. “I drove myself. They’re probably going to all go have dinner or something, and I need to get back earlier to, um.” He lets out a self-deprecating chuckle. “You know. Fail another calc test.”

“Ah.” She gives him a sympathetic nod. “That kind of midterms week, then?” Bucky wants to laugh and respond with, _‘You have no idea,’_ but he doesn’t; he just nods and shrugs. Dr. Keller tilts her head to the side and gives Bucky an interested look. “How’s your wheat, by the way?”

“Not sure,” he shrugs honestly. He pushes away thoughts of Steve the best he can. “The snow just melted earlier this week.”

“I see,” she says, understanding. “Still waiting for it to turn up green. Stressful time.”

“Yeah… I’m hoping to find out this weekend when I go home for Spring Break. If it’s healthy.”

Dr. Keller nods, and then they’re both sort of awkwardly standing there trying to figure out if the conversation is over. Bucky decides to save himself the embarrassment of being brushed off.

“Well, um, I guess I won’t keep you anymore.” Bucky telegraphs his leave by taking a step back. “I just wanted to say hello and thank you for all the help—”

“Do you have another few minutes, actually?” she asks, and Bucky is stunned into silence. “My office is just down the hall. I know you’ve got a test to head back for, but if you can spare the time, I’d love to chat with you a little more. About your wheat, the clover.” Her smile widens. “Your farm.”

Bucky can’t believe his own ears. His mouth opens and closes like he’s a fish as he stares at her, and it feels like forever before he finally remembers he needs to provide an answer.

He looks down at the time on his phone and—shit. He really does need to be on the road soon if he’s going to stop at his apartment and still have a few hours to cram before his test.

“Sure,” Bucky says anyway, unable to tamp down his excited grin. He has no self control. “I, um. Lead the way?”

Dr. Keller laughs pleasantly. She turns on her stylish heels, heading down the hall.

“Sure thing,” she calls over her shoulder. “Follow me.”

—

Bucky practically sprints across the last fifty yards of asphalt between him and his truck. He unlocks the door and swings it open, tossing his bag onto the passenger’s seat while he shoves the keys into the ignition and turns them. He’s got the wheels set to reverse and his foot on the gas before the door even closes all the way.

The afternoon sky had been sunny when Bucky pulled into the visitor’s parking lot three hours ago. Now, as he takes a left turn onto Purdue’s main campus road, there’s a dark strip of gray clouds moving in from the southwest. Patches of clear, blue sky are visible trailing behind it.

Bucky has spent far, far too long here. He needs to get home _now_.

He swears as he hits his third red light in a row. Bucky’s fingers tap against the steering wheel, punching out the rhythm of adrenaline thrumming insistently through his veins.

And a single raindrop hits his windshield.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates Wednesdays and weekends. Your comments and kudos and shares [ [tumblr](https://the1918.tumblr.com/post/638392416048693248/the-farmer-daddy-steve-and-bucky-au-series-by) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/the1918Lynne/status/1348019180533112836?s=20) ] water farmer Steve's crops ❤
> 
> Thank you again to [ixalit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixalit) for beta and to Cera ([@ceratonia-siliqua](https://ceratonia-siliqua.tumblr.com/) or [Leopardtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardtail) on Ao3) for additional sensitivity reading. Also thank you to [Becassine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/becassine) and all of the Shrunkyclunks BitchesTM for providing support and the always necessary hype.


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